The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1879-08-20
THE LAW OF THE FARM.
Rights I'm the Road.

If the farm, as decided, is bounded by,
on, or upon road it usually
extends to the middle of the
roadway. The farmer owns the soil
of half the road, and may use the grass,
trees, stones, gravel sand or anything of
value to him, either on the land or be-
meath the surface subject only to the su-
perior rights of the public to travel over
the road, and that of the road supervisor
to use such materials for the repair of the
road; and these materials he may cart
away and use elsewhere on the road.
No other man has a right to feed his cat
tie there, or cut the grass or trees, much
less deposit his wood, old carts, wagons or
other things therein, see Cox VS.. The
Louisville New Albany and Chicago Rail-
road Company, 4S Ind, page lis; 3 Kent
Comm, page 432 and authorities; s Met,
SIC; s Allen, 473 and l Penn. St., 1856.
The owner of drove of cattle which stops
to feed in front of your land, or drove of
pigs which root up the soil, is response
Bile to YOU at law as much as if they did
the same things inside the fence. No
body's children have right to pick up
the apples under your tress, although the
same stand wholly outside of your fence,
1--WE do not advise invoking the aid OF the
law in the latter case, so say ''God bless
the children" let them fill their baskets
and pockets as full as they wish to when
on their way to and from schooD. No
person has a right to cut or lop off the
limbs of your trees in order to move his
old barn or other buildings along the
can hitch his horse to the tree in the side
walk without being liable if he gnaws the
bark or otherwise Injuries them. So de-
cided in "a Me-, page 400 upon the au
thority in Kent's Commentaries. This
independent of municipal regulations in
towns and cities.) If your well stands
partly on your land and partly outside
the fence no neighbor can use it except
by your permission. Nay, more; no man
has right to stand in front of your land
and insult you with abusive language
without being liable to you for tresspass-
ing on your land IL Barb, 1901, in addition
to his liability for an attempt to provoke
etc. He has a right to pass and repass in
an orderly and becoming manner; a
right to use the road, but not to abuse ii.
But notwithstanding the farmer owns the
soil of the road, even he can not use it
for any purpose which interferes with the
use of it by the public for travel. He can
not put his pig pen, wagon, wood or
other things there and thus obstruct pub
lie travel or endanger it in the least and
this whether the road supervisor has or
has not ordered them removed. If he
leaves such things outside his fence, and
within the limits of the highway as act
ually laid out, though some distance from
the travelled path, and traveller runs
into them in the night and is injured the
owner is not only liable to him for DANA
ges in a civil action, (see Woods VS.. Mears.
II Ind, page SIS; Newhouse VS.. Miller
and wife, 35 Ind, page 463 and au,hori-
ties cited, also Is Conn.,, 225) but may
also be indicted and fined or imprisoned
for obstrncting a public highway, Revised
Statutes 1876, Vol. IL, page 479 sec. &c.
And if he built fence or wall along the
highway he must place it all on his own
land and not half on the road as in case of
division fence between neighbors "A Gray.
215.) But as he owns the soil, if the road
be discontinued, or located elsewhere, the
land reverts to him, and he may en-
close it to the center of the road
and use it as part of his farm.