Fences are employed to mark the boundary of property, to exclude trespassers, either human or quadrupedal, and to afford shelter. They are either live fences, and are then known as hedges, or dead, and are then either banks, ditches, palings, or walls; or they are a union of those two, to which titles the reader is referred.

The following is the English law on the subject: -

In the eye of the law a hedge, fence, ditch, or other inclosure of land, is for its better manuring and improvement; and various remedies are therefore provided for their preservation.

The common using of a wall separating adjoining lands belonging to different owners is prima facie evidence that the wall, and the land on which it stands, belongs in equal moieties to the owners of those lands as tenants in common. (Cubitt v. Porter, 8 B. & C. 257).

One of such tenants in common of a wall or hedge may maintain an action of trespass against the co-tenant for injuring the wall or for grubbing up the hedge, but not for clipping the latter. (Voyce v. Voyce, Gow. 201).

If a field be fenced with a bank and ditch, it is not a necessary consequence that his ditch extends eight feet from the interior line of the bank's foot, viz., four feet for the base of the bank, and four feet for the ditch; and the owner has no right to cut into his neighbour's field to widen the ditch beyond the proof of its ancient width. (Vowles v. Miller, 3 Taunton, 137).

Where two fields are separated by a hedge and ditch, the hedge, primafacie, belongs to the owner of the field in which the ditch is not. If there are two ditches, one on each side the ditch, evidence must prove acts of ownership over the hedge to show to whom it belongs. (Guy v. West, 2 Selwyn, N. P. 1287).

The owner of the wall or hedge is bound to repair it; and if any injury arises from its being out of repair, an action on the case lies.

Any one stealing or cutting, breaking or throwing down, with the intent to steal, any fence, post, pales, rail, stile, or gate, or any part thereof, may be fined by a justice of the peace the amount of the injury done, and a fine not exceeding 5l. Committing the same offence a second time renders the offender liable to twelve months' imprisonment and a whipping.

Stealing metal garden-fencing is a felony. In America each State has its own peculiar laws on this as on other subjects. In Pennsylvania, by an Act of 1700, entitled "Art act for the regulating and maintaining of Fences," it was provided that "all cornfields and grounds kept for inclosures within the said province and counties annexed, shall be well fenced with fence at least five feet high, and close at the bottom, etc." By an Act of 1729, it was provided that "to prevent disputes about the sufficiency of fences, all fences shall be esteemed lawful and sufficient, though they be not close at the bottom, so that the distance from the ground to the bottom thereof, exceed not nine inches; and that they be four feet and a half high, and not under." Both acts are operative in certain counties only. - See Purdon's Digest.

Ornamental fences for enclosing gardens, yards, etc, are almost as diversified as the ideas of beauty in the human mind. "The impression, on viewing grounds laid out with some pretension to taste, is governed in a degree, by the style and character of the surrounding fence. It is a great mistake to suppose the most elaborate (and of course costly) arc the most pleasing; yet acting on this supposition, we see exhibited fences which appear to have been planned as if to show the amount of money which could be thus expended, and after all, they rather disgust than please.

Fig. 42.

Fig. 43.

Fig. 44.

"The figures 42, 43, 44, illustrate three simple designs, formed by straight slats or pales, and therefore of the least expense; they are readily executed, and agreeable from their simplicity. The colour which should be used, is of course a matter of taste; white is generally preferred, though dark shades, even jet black, are the most pleasing to many; for ourselves, we should choose the latter, though it be not the best, so far as the preservation of the wood is concerned." - Rural Reg.