1. Soil; earth; a portion of the earth’s surface appropriated to private useand under cultivation or susceptible of cultivation.Though this term is sometimes used in conveyances and in statutes as equivalent to”land.” it is properly of a more limited signification, because it applies strictly only to tiiesurface, while “land” includes everything beneath the surface, and because “ground”always means dry land, whereas “land” may and often does include the beds of lakesand streams and other surfaces under water. See Wood v. Carter, 70 III. App. 218;State v. Jersey City, 25 N. J. Law, 520; Com. v. Roxbury, 9 Gray (Mass.) 491.
