The young advocate clearly opened out the nature of the defence of
adverse possession, and the philosophy upon which it rested; and
explained that the defendant, to meet the plaintiff's paper case, must
show that he and those under whom he claimed, had been in the open,
continued, and notorious possession of the property for twenty years,
before suit was brought, claiming to be the owners. This the defendant
was to show, at the peril of destruction; and in a few happy sentences
he brought the jury to feel an intense anxiety that he should succeed.
Then he turned back the years, blotted out the highways, re-planted
the forests, till the court house dissolved, and a wondrous maple
wood crowned the hill on which it stood. And so back, till the Indians
returned, and elk and panthers roamed at will. Then he pointed out
a sorrow-stricken, moody, brooding man, seeking a "lodge in the vast
wilderness," hunting the spring, and building his shanty, making his
clearing, and planting a few apple seeds, brought from his old home;
and picking up the section of the tree trunk, he read off from its
end, "twenty-nine years ago!"
He sketched in rapid, natural lines, the life of the recluse, the
necessities of his situation, his keeping cows, and the means of
restricting their range; dwelt upon the evidence of the tree fences,
and argued that the fact that two of them were used for that purpose,
was conclusive that the other sides were also fenced, for without them
no enclosure could exist.
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