1. Soil; earth; a portion of the earth’s surface appropriated to private use and 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 the surface, while “land includes everything beneath the surface, and because “ground” always means dry land, whereas “land” may and often does include the beds of lakes and streams and other surfaces under water. See Wood v. Carter, 70 111. Apo. 218; State v. Jersey City, 25 N. J. Law, 529; Com. v. Roxbury, 9 Gray (Mass.) 491. Ground annual. In Scotch law. An annual rent of two kinds: First, the feu duties payable to the lords of erection and their successors; second, the rents reserved for building lots in a city, where sub-feus are prohibited. This rent is in the nature of a perpetual annuity. Bell: Ersk. Inst 11, 3, 52. Ground landlord. The grantor of an estate on which a ground-rent is reserved. Ground-rent. A perpetual rent reserved to himself and his heirs, by the grantor of land in fee simple, out of the land conveyed. It is in the nature of an emphyteutic rent. Also, in English law, rent paid on a building lease. See Hart v. Anderson, 198 Pa. 558, 48 Atl. 636; Sturgeon v. Ely, 6 Pa. 406; Franciscus v. Reigart, 4 Watta (Pa.) 116.
2. A foundation or basis. Ground of action. The basis of a suit; the foundation or fundamental state of facts on which an action rests; the real object of the plaintiff in bringing his suit. See Nash v. Adams, 24 Conn. 39; Appeal of Huntington, 73 Conn. 582, 48 Atl. 766. Appeal of Wechsler, 96 Conn. 54. Ground writ. Bv the English common law procedure act, 1852, c 121. “it shall not be necessary to issue any writ directed to the sheriff of the county in which the venue is laid, but writs of execution may issue at once into any county, and be directed to and executed by the sheriff of any1 county, whether a county palatine or not, without reference to the county in which the venue is laid, and without any suggestion of the issuing of a prior writ into such county.” Before this enactment, a ca. sa. or fi. fa. could not be issued into a county different from that in which the venue in the action was laid, without first issuing a writ, called a “ground writ,” into the latter county, and then another writ which was called a “testatum writ” into the former. The above enactment abolished this useless process. Wharton.