ACCRETION (Lat. accrescere, to grow to). ' The increase of real estate by the addition of portions of soil, by gradual deposition through the operation of natural causes, to that already in possession of the owner. 3 Washb. R. P. (5th ed.) 50.
The term a/luvion is applied to the deposit itself, while accretion rather denotes the act.
If an island in a non-navigable stream re sults from accretion, it belongs to the owner of the bank on the same side of the filum aqua; 3 Washb. R. P. 60 ; 2 Bla. Corn. 261, n.; 3 Kent 428 ; Hargrave, Law Tracts 5 ; Hale, de Jur. Mar. 14; 3 Barn. & C. 91, 107; Ex parte Jennings, 6 Cow. (N. Y.) 537, 16 Am. Dec. 447; Ingraham v. Wilkinson, 4 Pick. (Mass.) 268, 16 Am. Dec. 342; Wood bury v. Short, 17 Vt. 387, 44 Am. Dec. 344.
"It is generally conceded that the riparian title attaches to subsequent accretions to the land effected by the gradual and impercepti ble operation of natural causes. But wheth er it attaches to land reclaimed by artificial means from the bed of the river, or to sud den accretions produced by unusual floods, is a question which each state decides for it self ;" Barney v. Keokuk, 94 U. S. 337, 24 L. Ed. 224 ; Missouri v. Nebraska, 196 U. S. 23, 25 Sup. Ct. 155, 49 L. Ed. 372 ; Goddard v. Winchell, 86 Ia. 71, 52 N. W. 1124, 17 L. R. A. 788, 41 Am. St. Rep. 481. As a general rule, such accretions do not belong to the riparian owner ; City of Victoria v. Schott, 9 Tex. Civ. App. 332, 29 S. W. 681; Cox v. Arnold, 129 Mo. 337, 31 S. W. 592, 50 Am. St. Rep. 450 ; Cooley v. Golden, 117 Mo. 33, 23 S. W. 100, 21 L. R. A. 300 ; but if, after an avulsion, an accretion forms within the orig inal land line, it belongs to the riparian own er, though separated from the main land by a slough; Minton v. Steele, 125 Mo. 181, 28 S. W. 746. Land remade by accretion
after it has been washed away belongs to the original proprietor ; Ocean City Ass'n v. Shriver, 64 N. J. L. 550, 46 Atl. 690, 51 L. R. A. 425, n., which see as to the right of the owner to follow accretions across a di vision line previously submerged by the ac tion of the water.
However accretions may be commenced or continued, the right of one who is the owner of uplands to follow and appropriate them ceases when the formation passes laterally the land of his conterminous neighbor ; Mul ry v. Norton, 100 N. Y. 425, 3 N. E. 581, 53 Am. Rep. 206, where a bar separated from the mainland by a lagoon was claimed as an accretion by the owner of the portion of the bar where the formation began. This bar merely replaced a formation which had been In part washed away, and the court said that the owner of the nucleus of the bar could not, even if the process of its extension was effected by accretion, claim beyond the point where such accretions began to be adjacent to the property of adjoining owners. See 51 L. R. A. 425, n.
An accretion formed on the other side of a public street which bounds the property of an individual belongs to the street, if the fee of that is in the public ; Ellinger v. R. Co., 112 Mo. 525, 20 S. W. 800; City of St. Louis v. R. Co., 114 Mo. 13, 21 S. W. 202. A relictiou formed by the gradual drying up of a lake belongs to the riparian owners ; Poyn ter v. Chipman, 8 Utah, 442, 32 Pac. 690; Olson v. Huntamer, 6 .S. D. 364, 61 N. W. 479; but not one formed by artificial drain age ; Noyes v. Collins, 92 Ia. 566, 61 N. W. 250, 26 L. R. A. 609, 54 Am. St. Rep. 571.
See Avutslow ; ALLIIVION ; RIPARIAN Pao PRIETOR; ISLAND; Itnizertow.