Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 June 1879 — Ways Over the Farm. [ARTICLE]

Ways Over the Farm.

Others may acquire a right of way over your farm in either one or three modes: 1. By purchase or grant from you; 2. By long-continued use or prescription; 3. By actual necessity. As to the first method, to gain a permanent right by purchase or grant, it must have been by a regular and complete deed, executed in the same way as a deed of the land itself. If the bargain was only oral, or if it was even in some simple written paper, bat not in a formal deed under seal, it would, even though fully paid for, be in law revocable—a mere license, as it is called—and might be terminated, at the mere wish of the land owner, by a notice to the other party to use it no longer. Being a kind of interest in land, the strict law requires it to be conveyed by a deed (2 Gray, 302; 2 Allen, 578.) The second mode, by prescription, requires length of time—twenty years at least; and the way must have been used continuously, peaceably and under a claim of right to do so, and not by your permision or consent. If it was only very rarely used, if it was not peaceably used, but against your protest, or if used by your tacit consent, the use would not ripen into a legal right, however longoontinued (8 Gray, 441; 11 Gray, 148.) And if psed under all those conditions, it must have been in some regular and uniform place. No man can gain a right by such means to wander over your farm lust where he has a mind to or where iis convenience suits him; that would be an intolerable burden to the farmer (5 Pick., 485.) To gain this right by twenty years’ use, it is not necessary that any one owner should, have traveled it twenty years. If successive owners have unitedly used it for that period, it would be sufficient, so far as length of time is concerned (2 Allen, 277.) And if this prescriptive right of way was gained only by using it for some particular purpose, as for carting wood from a wood-lot beyond, that would not authorize the person to continue to use it 1 for all purposes, after the wood had been all cut off, and it had been covered over with buildings (11 (Jray, 150; 15 Gray* 387.) * • 4 The third iqojie, by necessity, arises when you sell a man a back lot, with no means for lym to get to any highway except over vour remaining landCT The law gives him a right to crps? your

land to and fro? otherwise his land would be useless. At present he can’t reach it by balloon to any practicable purpose, and therefore he must cross your land. So, H you sell a man all your front land, retaining the back part, and have no. way out except over the part sold, you retain a right to cross Ike lot sola, though your deed in such case says nothing about it; and this is so, even if in your deed you warrant the land to be free and clear from all incumbrances (4 Gray, 297.) It is a familiar maxim that “necessity knows no law.” But this right of way by necessity continues only so long aS the necessity itself continues; and if a highway is afterward laid out touching the back land on the other side, or ii the owner afterward buys a lot adjoining it and botween it and a highway, he can no longer cross over your laiid as before, but must go out the other way (14 Gray, 126.) And, to long as he docs have such a right, he must go in such place as you designate, if it- be a reasonable place. If you mark out a road or a way along the fence, or on tho poorer he should confine himself to that (2 Pick., 478.) And, if the way becomes miry or out of repair, he must keep it in good condition if he wants to use it. Your duty is done when you allow him to cross; you are nbt obliged to smooth his pathway for him, and rake out the sticks and stones (12 Mass., 69.) But if you actually obstruct his usual road, or if It becomes suddenly impassable by natural causes, he would have a right to deviate to the side until he has opportunity to remove the obstructions (2 Allen, 646.) All such rights of way are apt to be nuisances to the farmer, and notunfroquently lead to litigation. It is important to Know that, in whatever mode a right of way is acquired {over your land, you have ordinarily a right, in the absence of any stipulation to the contrary, to erect suitable gates or bars at the entrance thereto from the highway; and if the other party leave them open, the cattle get in, or yours get out, he is liable to you for the damage which ensues (9 B. Monr., 21; 22 lowa, 161; 44 N. H., 639; 45 Md., 367.) —From an Address by Judge Bennett, Before the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture.