308 INJUNCTION AGAINST BREAKING UP PASTURE, 



an ouUioing tenant of (janlen g round to plough up stmwhorry heds in full 

 hearing, although when he entered he paid for them on a valuation to 

 the pei-son who occupied the premises before him, and although it may 

 have been usual for strawberry beds to be appraised and paid for, as 

 between outgoing and incoming tenants {WaflwreU v. Howells). 



Lord Eldon C.B., granted an injunction to restrain the defendant (the 

 tenant of a farm) //w;j brealcing iqj meadow for the j^ufyose of huilding, 

 contrary to the covenants of his lease, which were not to convert any 

 meadow land, with all other usual covenants showing that it was a 

 tillage farm. A covenant to manage pasture in a husiandlike manner 

 is equivalent to one not to convert it into arable {Bniryy. Molins). It is 

 clearly established by several authorities (Co. Litt. 53 a, Dyer 37, Hob. 

 23-A) that j)loughing meadow land is waste ; and one of the reasons given 

 is, that it alters the evidence of title, a reason which, as Tindal C.J. 

 observed in Simmons v. Norton, " I am not disposed to treat lightly. 

 It is also esteemed waste on another account; viz., that in ancient 

 meadow, years, perhaps ages, must elapse before the sod can be restored 

 to the state in which it was before ploughing. The law, therefore, con- 

 siders the conversion of pasture into arable as primd facie injurious to 

 the landlord on these two grounds at least." It w\is uniformly held by 

 Sir W. Mac3Iahon IM.R. (Ire.) that in fee simple estates a continuance 

 in pasture for 20 years, during the life of the donor or testator, im- 

 presses on land the character of ancient pasture ; but that if the period 

 was less than 20 years, the case is open to evidence of intention, but 

 not otherwise. It is not waste to plough up land held under a lease, if 

 the land was not ancient meadow or pasture at the date of the lease 

 (Jlorris v. Morris). A tenant may not break up ancient meadow or 

 pasture, though the land is mossy and requires tillage, and there is no 

 covenant in the lease against doing so {Martin v. Cogan). AxiAper Sir W. 

 MacMahon ]\r.Pt. : " The usual form of the affidavit required to support 

 an application for such an injunction, is that the land is ancient pasture 

 or meadowy and has not been burned nor tilled for the last 20 years, 

 and it is for the defendant to show that it ought not to be considered 

 ancient pasture, by reason of its having been used in tillage previously 

 to the date of his lease." Lord Ma?isfield C.J. ruled in Birch v. 

 Stephenson, that sowing clover tvith the spring corn does not constitute 

 laying down land in fermanent pasture, but it must still be considered 

 in a state of tillage. And p;- Tindal C.J. : "Merely sowing common 

 grass-seed does not make land old meadow again" {Simmons v. Norton). 



Kinlyside v. Thornton decided expressly that a lessor may sue for 

 waste in an action upon the case, although the lease contains a covenant 

 upon which the lessor might maintain an action for the same wrong. 



