Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/566

 remained unnoted. The general carelessness which the surveyors exhibited in running the perpendicular lines was doubtless due, in some measure, to the comparative worthlessness of the lands situated a mile from the streams. At that distance, the soil was generally thin and poor. Exactness and accuracy in measurement seemed to be unnecessary in the light of the fact that these lands, even when moderately fertile, were too far from navigable waters to make them valuable properties, such as the owners might desire to have surveyed with precision. The usual object in securing titles to tracts of this kind was not so much for the cultivation of tobacco as for the establishment of stock ranges, and for the use of the upland timber.

It was enacted as early as the session of 1623-1624, that when a difference of opinion as to the boundaries of their respective plantations had induced two neighbors to submit the correctness of their respective claims to the issue of a second and more perfect survey, and the result had proved to be unsatisfactory to either or both of the persons interested, then the grounds of the dispute were to be brought to the attention of the Governor and Council for a final settlement. In after years, it was found that much additional legislation was necessary to remove the confusion arising from the disputes as to the occupation of lands previously surveyed. A law was passed, which declared in general terms that the plats of all surveyors regularly commissioned should stand approved as giving an absolute right of possession to the holders, but this law did not meet the different points of the case. In the greatest number of instances, the patents conflicting with the metes and bounds of the adjacent tracts had been granted on surveys made by trained and duly authorized