A survey can either restate the obvious or attempt to add a critical dimension to the law’s uncertain progress. The obvious can be gleaned merely by scanning the orange-covered paperback indices which go with the official advance sheets and in which cases are condensed in the best headnote hunter’s style. This exercise presupposes a reader possessed of an interest in something more than the obvious, and one who enjoys a critique of a few key cases, precisely for the challenge of making an independent judgment of whether New York property law has progressed during the past Survey year