I wasn’t quite sure if picking cherries from a neighbor’s tree was exactly kosher, either by my lights or the law. But isn’t there some old legal principle that confers the right to pick fruit from trees overhanging your property? I did a little research and discovered that indeed there is. The Romans called it “usufruct,” which the dictionary defines as “the right to enjoy the use and advantages of another’s property short of the destruction or waste of its substance.” Bingo! Here was a venerable legal principle that spoke to the very soul of foraging.*
