Enclosure/Fence Laws

In England, owners of farm animals were required to fence them in; if an animal damaged someone else's property, the owner of the animal was liable in court. In comparatively thinly-settled colonial America, however, animals were allowed to run free, and farmers had to build fences around their crops or gardens; if an animal damaged property without a fence around it, the owner of the animal was not guilty of a tort. As settlement patterns became more dense, however, movements to adopt the English system of "stock laws" spread.