TO
THE HONORABLE JOHN E. RUSSELL,
SECRETARY OF
THE MASSACHUSETTS BOARD OF AGRICULTURE,
These Pages are Respectfully Inscribed,
AS A TOKEN OF MY LOVE AND ESTEEM FOR HIM AS A TRUE FRIEND,
A CLASSICAL SCHOLAR, AND AN ELOQUENT ORATOR,
WHOSE SPEECHES AND WRITINGS HAVE AIDED POWERFULLY
IN BRINGING ABOUT A REVIVAL OF AGRICULTURE,
AND IN CREATING AMONG THE PEOPLE
A LOVE OF AGRICULTURE AND
RURAL LIFE.
Transcriber's Note: The asterisks in footnotes 89 and 92 have do not have corresponding references in the text.
PREFACE.
The chapters of this book relating to the laws of public and private ways were written and read as a lecture at the Country Meeting of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, in December, 1885, at Framingham, and have since been published in the "Report on the Agriculture of Massachusetts for the Year 1885."
The laws as herein stated are, as I believe, the present laws of Massachusetts relative to public and private ways, and therefore they may not all be applicable to the ways in other States; but inasmuch as the common law is the basis of the road law in all the States, it will be found that the general principles herein laid down are as applicable in one State as in another.