Cutting Beech Woods. 
389 
There is no evidence that this usage is immemorial. 
A usage, though not immemorial, for farm tenants in a particular 
locality to cultivate their farms in a special manner, may he read into the 
contract between such a tenant and his landlord, if not repugnant to any- 
thing in the contract, or contrary to law as fixed hy statute or decided 
cases. 
This case differs in the following particulars : — 
1. A devise of an estate to a limited owner is not a contract. 
2. There is no evidence of a usage for limited owners impeachable of 
■waste to cut timber in the manner which is in question. 
3. To do so, if waste, is directly repugnant to the nature of the gift in 
this will. 
4. It is a violation of the common law to say that a limited owner 
impeachable of waste may cut timber in this manner. 
The Lord Justice then, in a most learned and elaborate judgment, 
discussed the further contentions of the defendants that the cutting 
the timber was not waste because (1) the West Wycombe estate 
was a “timber estate,” and because (2) the wood cut by Lady Dash- 
wood was “ seasonable wood,” which according to ancient authority 
might be cut by a limited owner. “What,” said his Lordship, “is 
a timber estate 1 ” Counsel for the defendants disclaimed the de- 
finition that it means an estate upon which there is a good deal of 
timber. A timber estate, they say, is an estate upon which timber 
is cut periodically to allow a succession to grow up, but this 
does not agree with Sir George Jessel’s definition. He defined 
such estates as “ estates which are cultivated merely for the produce 
of saleable timber and where the timber is cut periodically.” Jf 
the latter means that nothing else is cultivated on the estate, there 
are few, if any, such estates in this country. But if not, how much 
of the estate must be so cultivated to make it a timber estate 1 It 
must be a considerable portion, but the portion is not defined. The 
difficulty of defining a timber estate was, in his Lordship’s opinion, 
a serious if not fatal objection to the modification of the law of 
waste in regard to such an estate. And another equally serious 
objection was that there was no necessity for any such an innova- 
tion, for a settlor could always empower a limited owner to cut the 
timber in the way complained of in this case, even if he did not 
wish to render the limited owner generally unimpeachable for waste, 
yet he could use such words as these to effect his wish “ without 
impeachment of waste for such cutting of wood as has been usual 
upon the estate.” 
Nor, in his Lordship’s judgment, was the cutting to be justified 
on the ground that the wood cut by Lady Dashwood was “season- 
able wood ” or sitva ccedua, because the wood cut was timber, and 
seasonable wood or sitva ccedua meant wood which is cut down at 
different periods and which springs again from the same root or 
stool, that is to say, coppice and not timber. His Lordship summed 
up the conclusions to which he had come as follows : — 
(1) That Lady Dashwood was impeachahle for waste. (2) That cutting 
