be regular, or he purchases them at five shillings
each as aforesaid. When the rights are thus obtained, they are produced
to the surveyor of the county, and the land is showed to him; who,
thereupon, is bound to make the survey if the land had not been patented
before. These rights to land are as commonly sold by one man to another,
as the land itself; so that any one, not having rights by his own
importation, may have them by purchase.

It is the business of the surveyor also to take care that the bounds of
his survey be plainly marked, either by natural boundaries, or else by
chopping notches in the trees, that happen in the lines of his courses;
but this is done at the charge of the man that employs him.

This survey being made, a copy thereof is carried, with a certificate of
rights to the secretary's office, and there (if there be no objection) a
patent of course is made out upon it, which is presented to the governor
and council for them to pass; the patentee having no more to do but to
send for it when it is perfected, and to pay the fee at the first crop
to the sheriff of the county, by whom annually the fees are collected.

This patent gives an estate in fee simple, upon condition of paying a
quit rent of twelve pence for every fifty acres, and of planting or
seating thereon, within three years, according to their law; that is, to
clear, plant, and tend three acres of ground for every fifty, and to
build an house, and keep a stock of cattle, sheep, or goats, in
proportion to the meaner part of the land in the patent.

Sec. 60. Lapsed land, is when any one having obtained a patent as before,
doth not set or plant thereon within three years, as the condition of
the patent requires; but leaves it still all or part uninhabited and
uncultivated. In such case it is said to be lapsed, and any man is at
liberty to obtain a new patent in his own name of so much as is lapsed,
the method of acquiring which patent is thus.

The party must apply himself by petition to the general court, another
to the governor, setting forth all the circumstances of the lapse. If
this petition be allowed, the court makes an order, to certify the same
to the governor, in whose breast it is then to make a new grant thereof
to such person if he thinks they deserve it, upon the same condition, of
setting or planting within three years, as was in the former patent.
Thus land may be lapsed or lost several times, by the negligence of the
pat