Sadly, this quote about casual country boundaries is mistaken. Boundaries in the countryside are very much as contentious today as in the city, especially with development ubiquitously gobbling up the countryside. We now live in such a litigious society that a good survey is recommended on any substantial property acquisition for protection of the purchaser, as is a thorough title exam. Those quaint old boundary trees eventually die (or get chopped down), leaving behind cryptic boundaries, something many lenders are uncomfortable with when underwriting property acquisition mortgages. A safer bet is to use a property description based on survey markers and metes-and-bounds calls (which nowadays use GPS to pinpoint property corners), or lot-and-block descriptions inside platted land. Alas!

Sadly, this is true.

It is more important to get along with your neighbors than to get an “accurate” survey and squabble about a few feet.”

I wish more neighbors realized this. Unfortunately, since their home and land is usually the only meaningfully valuable asset they own, they often can be extremely territorial about it.

When we are geocaching, we also spend a fair amount of time “benchmarking” - looking for survey marks. We find them everywhere, in all sorts of forms. It’s cool.