e
side of a public road thirty feet wide and the influence was shown to
the second row of apple trees on the other side. I do not think it was
the shade in that case. The limbs were pretty high too. It was a public
road. I do not think there were any roots that reached the apple trees
at all.

MR. MCGLENNON: Mr. Rush's reference to the ownership of the
crop on trees planted on the road-side is a thought that has occupied my
mind, and I have found some consolation in the belief that the ownership
of land applies from the center of the roadway. I am not sure about that
and I think it is a point that ought to be clarified.

MR. SMEDLEY: I think in Pennsylvania the public just have the
right-of-way there; they have no claim to anything that grows.

THE PRESIDENT: In Michigan, the law applies that the ownership
goes to the middle of the highway. The recent act of the legislature of
our state causes the state highway commissioner to plant trees for the
maintenance of the roadway. The planting of the trees he claims benefits
the roadway, so that under that application he plants the trees for the
maintenance of the road. The distance from the fence line varies. The
state highway department of Michigan has a department for the planting
of trees since the law introduced by Senator Penney some two or three
years ago came into effect. The commissioner varies his planting,
sometimes in groups and sometimes in a formal way, according to the
stretch of road; but the basis of it all, perhaps, would be thirteen
feet from the lot line on each side of the road. Our roads, or at least
ninety per cent of them, are sixty-six feet in width. Thirteen feet from
the lot line on each side would take twenty-six feet, and planting them
forty feet apart in the other direction makes those trees forty feet
apart each way. A great majority of the trees being planted in Michigan
follow that particular plan, so they are thirteen feet from the property
holder's fence line.

I might say that occasionally the highway commissioner would run across
an obstinate individual who would not plant trees in front of his place
nor permit such trees to be planted as would conform to the other
plantings. But the law passed at the last session of our legislature
leaves it entirely in the control of the planting department of the
highway department. The law reads that the owner of the adjacent
property shall have the privilege of gathering the fruit or nuts or
whate