not therefore necessarily require credit in respect of resources which are less palpable and obvious.

It has been seen that minerals form part of the land, and mining adventurers will, therefore, in many cases, possess the immunities of those whose pursuits are connected with land. The questions arising upon this subject are sometimes very embarrassing, and it will be proper to take a careful view of the cases relating to it.

It is quite clear, that when minerals are sold in their natural condition by the owners or occupiers of land or mines, there will be no trade within the meaning of the bankrupt laws. There must be both a buying and a selling to constitute such a trade. There is no workmanship of goods or commodities, for there is no change effected in the constitution of the article, and there is no new adaptation of it to a different purpose. Most of the metallic ores and many of the earths require, indeed, the labour of mining or excavation, and the process of being washed and freed from the foreign impurities mixed with them. But the sole object of these pursuits is to obtain the mineral in its pure and natural state, and in these cases, the mineral itself never becomes strictly the subject of workmanship.

It has, accordingly, been long decided, that a person who buys a coal mine, works it, and sells the produce, is not necessarily a trader within the bankrupt laws (b). A similar decision has been made in the case of a person selling stones from a quarry (c). The same principle applies to the ores of metals or any other substances acquired in a similar manner, and to salt works (d).

It having been established that an occupier of land enjoying the profits of it in this manner is not liable to the bankrupt laws, the cases proceed a step further, and decide that a person, under such circumstances, may also be allowed, without incurring that liability, not only to sub

(b) Port v. Turton, 2 Wils. 169. (c) Ex parte Gardner, 1 Rose, 377; 1 Ves. & B. 45.

(d) Port v. Turton, supra; Ex parte Atkinson, 1 M. D. & G. 300.

ject the produce of the land to a process of manufacture, so as to change its external or chemical character, but also to purchase other ingredients to mix with the produce, so as to manufacture an entirely different article. In either case, the additional processes were considered as incident to the full enjoyment of the property of the occupant, and as enabling him, in the words of Lord Mansfield, to bring the produce advantageously to market (e).

Thus, the conversion of milk into cheese, of apples into cider (f), of coal into coke (g), of limestone into lime (h), of clay into bricks (i), have all been considered to be excluded from the operation of the statutes. In one case, it was held that if a person make bricks from his own estate, and buys chalk and burns it with clay, not for the purpose of carrying on lime-burning as a business, but as the most convenient mode of burning the clay into bricks, it is not a trading, although the chalk was not necessary, and the lime produced in the process was sold (k). The purchase of materials for carrying on the manufacture of alum, under such circumstances, has also been held not to subject the purchaser to the bankrupt laws (1).

The produce of coal mines and other speculations undergoes no process which requires the purchase of another article to render it fit for the market. It has been doubted whether a person may purchase a particular species of coal in order to render his own more marketable, without being liable to the bankrupt laws. The intention of the vendor would, at any rate, be a question for a jury (m). The

(e) 1 Brown, 178.

(f) Parker . Wells, 1 Bro. 179, reported in Cooke's Bank. Law, p. 47, per Lord Mansfield; S. C. 1 T. R. 34, 783.

(g) Ex parte Harrison, 1 Bro. 175, per Lord Thurlow.

(h) Ex parte Ridge, 1 Rose, 316; 1 Ves. & B. 360.

(i) Parker v. Wells, supra; Sutton

v. Weeley, 7 East, 442; 3 Smith, 445; Ex parte Gallimore, 2 Rose, 424.

(k) Paul v. Dowling, M. & M. 263; 3 Car. & P. 500, per Lord Tenterden. (1) Newton v. Newton, 1 Cooke,

64.

(m) Ex parte Gallimore, 2 Rose, 424.

metallic ores, on the other hand, and other substances, after being effectually separated from the soil, may indeed be also marketable, in the strict sense of the word, in the same manner. But they are only marketable to particular persons, whose business consists in preparing them, by the proper application of other materials and approved processes, for the general market. This latter occupation is often carried on by such persons, who purchase the minerals, and are, of course, to be considered as ordinary traders. But it is very often pursued by the producers themselves, and in that case they will not thus become subject to the bankrupt laws, as they are only engaged in preparing the produce of their lands, so as to make it profitable, and bring it advantageously to market. If they, in such cases, purchase other articles of the same nature, which may be required for the proper and advantageous manufacture of their own minerals, and a portion or the whole of those articles are necessarily vended with the produce of their mines, they may be equally exempt from becoming traders within the meaning of the bankrupt laws. The qualities of iron, for instance, are often such as reasonably require the admixture of proportions of other iron ore, of a different quality and description, to be obtained from other proprietors, in order that, in the process of smelting, the ores raised by the purchasers may acquire an improved condition and an additional value. Again, it is well known that lead ore usually contains a proportion of silver, of very variable amount, which is separated from it by approved processes. It may sometimes happen that the producer of an ore containing a very small quantity of silver, may find it advisable to purchase other ores containing a greater quantity of the precious metal, in order to procure that contained in his own ore more profitably or more advantageously. The lead, both produced and purchased, may, in such a case, be sold without producing liability to the bankrupt laws.

The law upon this subject has been well expressed by

Lord Ellenborough, in the case of Sutton v. Weeley (n) This was a case of brick making, which is very similar, in this respect, to the smelting processes. In the present case, he observed, the defendant could in no way be considered as buying anything which he sold again; but, like a burner of his own chalk or rock into lime, the smelter from his own mines of iron or lead ore into pigs, or the manufacturer of his own rock into alum, he appeared merely to have carried his own soil to market in some way manufactured. In these several cases, although the surface of the earth might produce some profit, yet the selling the soil under the surface, or parts of the soil, in a state essentially altered by various processes of manufacture, had been held not to alter the character of the land owner, nor to convert him into a person who can be properly said to carry on the trade of merchandize.

So far all the authorities agreed; but a difference of opinion has prevailed with respect to the extent to which the occupier went in purchasing other materials to mix with the produce, the relative expense of manufacture, and the intention of the parties conducting the business.

This difference arose in cases of brick making, in which it is almost always necessary to buy other ingredients, as coal ashes, breese and straw; and, where the operations are generally destructive, for a time at least, to the ordinary profits of the land.

A person rented an extensive farm of eight hundred acres, in which there was a parcel of brick ground, for twenty-one years. The brick ground was once let to a sub-tenant, who carried on there the business of brick making. On his death, the business was taken up by the alleged bankrupt, the plaintiff, and son of the first lessee. The father afterwards died, and the lease of the whole farm was renewed by the son. The case was tried at Croydon before Lord Mansfield, who directed the jury, that, if the plaintiff made bricks for his own buildings, though he sold (n) 7 East, 446.

what he did not use, they should not find him a trader; but if they thought he carried on the trade for public sale, merely with a view to the gain he expected, they should find him a trader. The plaintiff was, accordingly, found to be a trader. The point being argued in the Court of Common Pleas, it was there decided that he was not a trader. It was observed by Lord Loughborough, that such a person only availed himself of his property in order to raise to himself a profit out of the land: his possessions were open and visible to all the world; the extent, therefore, of his credit might be measured by it, and the course of his business did not connect his credit with any other persons. A brickmaker might be a bankrupt; no doubt, a dealer in alum or coals might be a bankrupt; but the whole depends upon the nature and mode of the dealing. The true distinction is, when the business is only carried on as a mode of enjoying the profits of a real estate, and when it is carried on substantially and independently as a trade; it would be an uncommon use of the word, but it is a trade in gross. The other is connected with the means of enjoying the estate by a mode of making profit of it. The man's situation, the extent of his credit, and the line of his dealing, are all to be measured by his real property, and not by the course of his dealings (o).

This judgment was afterwards reversed, in the Court of King's Bench, upon a writ of error. Lord Mansfield, in delivering the judgment of the Court, after recognizing several previous decisions, said, that where the produce of the land is merely the raw material of a manufacture, and used as such, and not as the mode of raising the produce of the land; in short, where the produce of the land is an insignificant article, compared with the expense of the whole manufacture, the occupier is, and ought to be considered a trader. The brick ground was taken with a view of carrying on a trade for public sale; the land produced nothing; the lease was merely a purchase of clay, and just the same (0) Cooke, B. L. 57.

Y