198 The Farmer's Business Handbook 



promise sought to be enforced was made has, 

 because of the promise, done or undertaken to do 

 something which he was not obliged to do, it 

 would make no difference whether the person 

 promising had received nothing for his promise. 

 In other words, I cannot be held to my promise 

 unless either I got something for it, or the other 

 man gave up something on the strength of it. 



The law of contract would fill many volumes, 

 but we may, in the small space that we have, 

 consider a great many of its important features 

 sufficiently to guard us against some of the com- 

 mon errors. We shall first consider who may 

 make binding contracts, and under this we shall 

 find many different conditions, each requiring its 

 own rule. On the question of how old a person 

 must be in order to make a binding contract, the 

 now generally accepted rule is that a minor, i. e., 

 a person under twenty-one years of age, cannot 

 be held to any contracts, except his contracts for 

 those things which are necessary to enable him to 

 live according to his station in life and in reason- 

 able comfort, health and safety. If he makes a 

 contract for any one of these purposes he must 

 pay for all that he receives under the contract, 

 and pay for it at whatever its fair value is. How- 

 ever, he cannot be made to pay more than the 

 fair value of what he has received, even though 

 he has agreed to pay much more than the fair 



