410 DEFINITION OF LEASE. 



CHAPTER XIIT. 



LANDLORD AND TENANT. 



A lessee even for half-a-tjear is considered a tenufit for years, a year 

 being the shortest term which the law notices. In the absence of any 

 evidence to the contrary, the tenancy under a written agreement for 

 the liire of a farm at a yearly rental, from year to year, must be taken 

 to begin from the day on which that agreement professes to have been 

 executed ; and that question is for the judge and not for the jury 

 {Bishop V. Wraith). ^'Demise, grant, and to farm-let,''' are the usual 

 words in a lease ; but whatever words amount to a grant are sufiicient 

 to maVe a lease (Co. Litt. 45 ; 2 Black. Com. 318). It was decided in 

 Doe deni. Morgan v. PowelJ, that whether an instrument is to operate 

 as a lease or an agreement depends upon the intention to be collected 

 from it, and from the natm'e and condition of the subject-matter, with- 

 out reference to the extrinsic circumstances or subsequent acts. And 

 2)er Tindal C.J. : " The mere use of tlie words ' I agree to let.' does not 

 make the instrument an agreement only, provided the rest of the words 

 show an intention to create an actual demise, but they throw a doubt 

 upon the intention." 



In Doe dem. Philips v. Benjamin, the plaintiff entered into an agree- 

 ment, of December 13th, 1834, with the defendant, who was his yearly 

 tenant, in the middle of a half-year, whereby he agreed to let the pre- 

 mises to him for fourteen years, determinable upon notice at the end of 

 seven years, at a certain rent, a lease to be drawn upon the usual terms, 

 upon which the defendant agreed to take them, and it was held that 

 this constituted a lease. And ^;er Curiam : " The words •' agree to let ' 

 have long been held the same as words of actual letting. It is said here 

 that the agreement for a future lease is inconsistent with a present 

 demise ; and it would have been as well if that distinction had been 

 upheld from the first : but it has been long settled that that circum- 

 stance alone will not reduce what would otherwise be a present demise 

 to a mere agreement. As to the provision that the lease shall contain 

 the usual covenants, Mansfield C.J. certamly held in Morgan v. Bissell 

 that such a description of the intended lease was uncertain and incon- 



