AGRICULTURE. The art of cultivating the earth in order to obtain from it the divers¹ things it can produce; and particularly what is useful to man, as grain, fruit's, cotton, flax, and other things. Domat, Dr. Pub. liv. tit. 14, s. 1, n. 1.

AID AND COMFORT. The constitution of the United States, art. 8, s. 3, declares, that adhering to the enemies of the United States, giving them aid and comfort, shall be treason. These words, as they are to be understood in the constitution, have not received a full judicial² construction. They import, however, help, support, assistance, countenance³, encouragement. The word aid, which oocurs in the Stat. West. 1, c. 14, is explained by Lord Coke (2 just. 182) as comprehending all persons counselling, abetting⁵, plotting, assenting⁶, consenting, and encouraging to do the act, (and he adds, what is not applicable to the Crime to treason,) who are not present when the act is done, See, also, 1 Burn's Justice, 5, 6; 4 Bl. Com. 37, 38.

AID PRAYER, English law. A petition to the court calling in help from another person who has an interest in the matter in dispute. For example, a tenant⁷ for life, by the courtesy or for years, being impleaded, may pray aid of him in reversion; that is, desire the court that he may be called by writ⁸, to allege⁹ what he thinks proper for the maintenance of the right of the person calling him, and of his own. F. N. B. 60; Cowel.

AIDERS, crim. law. Those who assist, aid, or abet⁴ the principal, and who are principals in the second degree. 1. Russell, 21.

AIDS, Engl. law. Formerly¹⁰ they were certain sums of money granted by the tenant to his lord in times of difficulty and distress¹¹, but, as usual in such cases, what was received as a gratuity¹² by the rich and powerful from the weak and poor, was soon claimed as a matter of right; and aids became a species of tax to be paid by the tenant to his lord, in these cases: 1. To ransom¹³ the lord's person, when taken priisoner; 2. To make the lord's eldest¹⁴ son a knight¹⁵; – 3. To marry the lord's eldest daughter, by giving her a suitable portion. The first of these remained uncertain; the other two were fixed¹⁶ by act of parliament at twenty shillings each being the supposed twentieth part of a knight's fee, 2 Bl. Com. 64.

AILE or AYLE, domestic relations. This is a corruption¹⁷ of the French word aieul, grandfather, avus. 3.Bl. Com. 186.

AIR. That fluid transparent¹⁸ substance which surrounds our globe.

2. No property can be had in the air it belongs equally to all men, being indispensable to their existence. To poison or materially to change the air, to the annoyance¹⁹ of the public, is a nuisance. Cro. Cr. 610; 2 Ld. Raym 1163; I Burr. 333; 1 Str. 686 Hawk²⁰. B. 1, c. 75, s. 10; Dane's Ab. Index h. t. But this must be understood with this qualification, that no one has a right to use the air over another man's land, in such a manner as to be injurious to him. See 4 Campb. 219; Bowy. Mod. Civ. Law, 62; 4 Bouv. Inst. n. 36 1; Grot. Droit de la Guerre et de la Paix, liv. 2, c. 2, 3, note, 3 et 4.

3. It is the right of the proprietor²¹ of an estate to enjoy the light and air that will come to him, and, in general, no one has a right to deprive him of them; but sometimes in building, a man opens windows over his neighbor's ground, and the latter, desirous of building on his own ground, necessarily stops the windows already built, and deprives the first builder of light and air; this he has the right to do, unless the windows are ancient lights, (q. v.) or the proprietor has acquired a right by grant or prescription²² to have such windows open. See Crabb on R. P. 444 to 479 and Plan. Vide Nuisance.