last is an estate in fee-simple, which is the largest estate a man can have in lands.

§ 112. Fee-simple.-The fee-simple, or inheritance of lands, is generally vested in some person or other. Inferior estates may be carved out of it. One may have the fee-simple, another may have a term for years, another may have a life-estate, another may have the right of possession, another may be in actual possession, of the same land.

§ 113. Fee-simple in abeyance.-A fee-simple may be in abeyance, according to Blackstone, as where there is a grant to John for life, and afterwards to the heirs of Richard. The fee in such can not vest in the heirs of Richard till his death, because no one can be an heir of the living, and John has plainly a life-estate only. The fee, therefore, is in abeyance while Richard lives. The inconvenience resulting from this notion has led some learned writers to repudiate it. Kent says that though the good sense of the thing and the weight of liberal doctrine are strongly opposed to the ancient notion of an abeyance, the technical rule is that livery of seizin takes the reversion of the inheritance from the grantor, and leaves him no tangible or disposable interest. He cites Preston on Estates as insisting that an estate in freehold, depending on another estate of freehold and limited on a contingency, must be in abeyance.

§ 114. Use of word "heirs."-At common law, where it was intended to convey a fee-simple estate by deed, the word "heirs" was essential. In many of the United States this strict rule has been abrogated by statute. In some states a form of deed is prescribed by statute,

which prescribes what the effect may be. The short form in Indiana, which is in substance, "A conveys and warrants to B " certain land, describing it, is held to be sufficient to convey the land, with the appurtenances and hereditaments to the grantee, his heirs and assigns with covenants of seizin and warranty, as fully as if these words and the full covenants were written in the deed. A government grant in any form the legislature may prescribe will take effect according to the legislative intent. A grant to a sovereignty requires no words of inheritance. The strict rule requiring the use of the word heirs," to create or convey a fee, has no application to wills. Where the testator's intention to create an estate of inheritance is manifest from the whole will, it will be so construed. Some states have gone so far as to enact by statute that every devise of land shall be construed to convey a fee-simple, unless it appears by express words that a less estate was intended.

In suits to compel the specific performance of agreements to convey land equity will sustain the right of a party asking a conveyance in fee where it appears to have been the intention of the parties to contract for a fee.

§ 115. Estates for life.-Estates for life are next in importance. These outrank estates for hundreds. of years, because it is said that no one knows how long a man may live. Where an estate for life is carved out of a fee the land comes back to the grantor when the estate for life ends, and that which the grantor has is an estate in reversion; if, however, a grant is made for life to one, and at his death to an

other and his heirs, this latter takes a remainder in fee. An estate for life may be for the life of the grantee or for the life of another. An estate for life in this country terminates with the natural death of the person. Civil death, as it is called in England, is not now known in this country. When one entered a monastery he was civilly dead, and in this country under the first general bankrupt law the bankrupt was regarded as civilly dead.

§ 116. Rights of life tenant.-The life tenant has certain rights determining the use he may make of the property.

He may take such wood and timber as may be necessary to keep up the buildings and inclosures and to supply him with fuel. He has no right to cut down timber and sell it for mere profit, but if there is a disproportion of woodland to arable land he may make a clearing; that is, he may remove the growing timber and dispose of the same so as to increase the arable land. The general rule is that he is entitled to the temporary use of the estate as he finds it, but in the United States, whether cutting any kind of trees in any particular case is waste seems to depend upon the question whether the act is such as a prudent farmer would do with his own land, having regard to the land as an inheritance, and whether the doing of it would diminish the value of the land as an estate.

§ 117. Emblements.-On the death of a life tenant his representatives have a right to the growing crops, upon which the tenant has bestowed his labor. In fact, whenever one holds lands for an uncertain term, and dies, the emblements, or growing crops, which are the fruit of his labor, go to his repre

sentatives. The mere preparation of the land for sowing will not give such right unless the tenant has planted.

§ 118. Taxes and interest.-The life tenant who receives the profits of the land must keep down the taxes, and if when he comes to the estate it is incumbered, he must pay the interest on the incumbrance, though he is not bound to discharge the principal.

§ 119. Waste.-If a life tenant commits or permits waste, he may be enjoined at the suit of the remainderman or reversioner. If he permits taxes to become delinquent, so that the estate is in danger of being sold, the courts will sometimes, upon a proper showing, decree a forfeiture of the life-estate.

§ 120. Estates for years.-An estate for years is where one is entitled to the possession and profits of land for a certain period. This estate is always created by the acts of the parties. The instrument creating it is termed a lease, and the parties are landlord and tenant. The execution and delivery of the lease perfects the title of the tenant. Sometimes these leases are practically interminable, though in form and theory they are for a fixed term, as where one leases lands for a term of ninety-nine years, renewable forever. It is quite common for railway companies to lease their lines to other companies for a period of nine hundred and ninety-nine years, and yet in law such estates and terms are deemed to be of less dignity than a life-estate. In some particulars the rights of the tenant for years are the same as those which belong to the tenant for life. The tenant for years has no right to emblements, for the term of his tenancy is fixed, but he may take timber suf

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ficient for fuel and to keep up the repairs of buildings and enclosures, and he may sublet the premises, unless that right is cut off or restricted by the terms of the lease, and he is liable in damages for waste, and may be enjoined in equity from committing or permitting it.

§ 121. Rent.-Rent, according to Blackstone, is "a certain profit arising yearly out of lands and tenements corporeal," or it is a periodical compensation in money or otherwise agreed to be given by the tenant to the landlord for the use of realty, the payment of which may be enforced like any other demand. One occupying the land of another, where there is no contract to pay a specific rent, is liable not for rent as such, but for the use and occupation of the premises, the amount to be reasonable, and in cases of dispute to be fixed by the jury.

If a tenant is evicted by a title superior to that of his landlord, the obligation to pay rent ceases; but so long as he remains in possession, neither the right of the landlord to demand rent nor the landlord's title can be disputed by the tenant.

A destruction of the premises by some inevitable accident will not exonerate the tenant from liability to pay rent for the unexpired term unless the lease contains a stipulation to that effect. There are exceptions to this rule, as where one rents apartments in a block and the whole structure is destroyed, the obligation to pay rent ceases. And it has been held that where the premises are destroyed after the execution of a lease, and before the lessee has taken possession, the tenant is not liable, and so a contract for a term to begin in the future does not bind the