6o8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



decided to be real estate, but wood cut and corded for sale is per- 

 sonal property. A statue exhibited for sale in a workshop is 

 personal property, but when placed upon a permanent foundation 

 (although not fastened to it), as an ornament in front of a house, 

 has been held to be a part of the realty. Chairs in a theater 

 and screwed to the floor, as they can not stand alone, are consid- 

 ered a part of the realty ; but gas fixtures and mirrors, made to 

 order for the house, and attached to the freehold, but removable 

 without injury thereto, are not deemed a part of the realty. Be- 

 fore emancipation in the United States, slaves, which by the 

 Federal Constitution were recognized as persons, were in several 

 of the States declared by law to be real estate ; * and in one State 

 of the Union, Wisconsin, the one species of property which is 

 especially typical of mobility, and is of no value apart from its 

 capability of motion, namely, the rolling stock of railroads, has 

 been by law made real estate. Shares in the national debt of 

 France, as well as stock on the bank of France instrumentalities 

 which in the United States would be regarded as personal prop- 

 erty in its most typical form may by French law be made real 

 estate, and as such be administered on. 



Some years ago the following curious experience occurred in 

 one of the New England States : A person rented a farm, and on 

 the expiration of his lease attempted to remove from the estate 

 the manure which had accumulated during his holding, assuming 

 that he had the right to it as personal property. The owner of 

 the farm, on the other hand, forbade the removal of the manure, on 

 the ground that it was real estate, and so a part of the farm. The 

 case found its way into the courts, and on its trial the lessee and 

 defendant who appeared for himself, attempted to substantiate 

 the legality of his proceedings in the following manner : Address- 

 ing the judge after the facts in the case had been established, he 

 asked, " Was the hay in the barn personal property ? " Judge : 

 " Certainly." Lessee : " Were the horses and cattle personal 

 property ? " Judge : " Without dispute." Lessee : " Then will 

 your Honor please to tell me how personal property can eat per- 

 sonal property and produce (dung) real estate?" The decision 

 was nevertheless in favor of the owner of the farm, or the plain- 

 tiff. Subsequently the courts of New York decided that manure 

 accumulated in connection with a livery stable, not being an 

 agricultural product pertaining to a farm, was not real estate but 

 personal property. 



In a case in the State of Tennessee, where a person who had 

 entered a neighbor's field and removed corn on the stalk was 



* In American colonial days slaves were regarded as belonging to the land, and figured 

 in tax valuations as real property. 



