Section 38. Three or more proprietors of lots in a general field lying within one general fence or enclosure may, by a written petition to the proprietors of such field at a meeting of said proprietors legally warned for the purpose, request to have their lots, either alone or jointly with any other lots in such field, divided from the remainder of the field in order to be enclosed by one common fence and occupied by them as an entire field separately from the other proprietors. If the majority of proprietors in interest present at such meeting withhold or refuse their assent to such division, the superior court may, upon like application, appoint five disinterested and suitable persons within the county where the general field is situated, to be a committee to make the division, if they deem it expedient, and to assign to each field its proportion of the partition fence which by reason of such division should be kept up and maintained by the proprietors of the said general fields respectively.