Profits

1. The advance in the price of goods sold beyond the cost of purchase. The gain made by the sale of produce or manufactures, after deducting the value of the labor, materials, rents, and all expenses, together with the interest of the capital employed. Webster. See Providence Rubber Co., v. Goodyear, 9 Wall. 805, 19 In Ed. 828; Mundy v. Van Hoose, 104 Ga. 292, 30 S. Bl 783; Hinckley v. Pittsburgh Bessemer Steel Co., 121 U. S. 264, 7 Sup. Ct. 875, 30 L. Ed. 967; Prince v. Lamb, 128 Cal. 120, 60 Pan. 689; Maryland Ice Co. v. Arctic Ice Mach. Mfg. Co.., 79 Md. 103, 29 AH. 69.
2. The benefit, advantage, or pecuniary gain accruing to the owner or occupant of land from its actual use; as in the familiar phrase "rents, issues, and profits," or in the expression "mesne profits."
3. A division sometimes made of incorporeal hereditaments; as distinguished from "easements," which tend rather to the convenience than the profit of the claimant. 2 Steph. Comm.
2.

— Mesne profits. Intermediate profits; that is, profits which have been accruing between two given periods. Thus, after a party has recovered the land itself in an action of ejectment, he frequently brings another action for the purpose of recovering the profits which have been accruing or arising Out of the land between the time when his title to the possession accrued or was raised and the lime of his recovery in the action of ejectment, and such an action is thence termed an "action for mesne profits." Brown.

— Mesne profits, action of. An action of trespass brought to recover profits derived from land, while the possession of it has been improperly withheld; that is, the yearly value of the premises. Worthington v. Hiss, 70 Md. 172, 16 Atl. 534; Woodhull v. Rosenthal, 61 N. Y. 394; Thompson v. Bower, 60 Barb. (N. Y.) 477,

— Net profits. Theoretically nil profits are "net." But as the expression "gross profits" is sometimes used to describe the mere excess of present value over former value, or of returns from sales over prime cost, the phrase "net profits" is appropriate to describe the gain which remains after the further deduction of all expenses, charges, costs, allowance for depreciation, etc.

— Profit and loss. The gain or loss arising from goods bought or sold, or from carrying on any other business, the former of which, in book-keeping, is placed on the creditor's side; the latter on the debtor's side.

— Profits A prendre. These, which are also called "rights of common." are rights exercised by one man in the soil of another, accompanied with participation in the profits of the soil thereof; as rights of pasture, or of digging sand. Profits ft prendre differ from easements, in that the former are rights of profit, and the latter are mere rights of convenience without profit. Gale, Easem. 1; Hall, Profits ft Prendre, 1. See Payne v. Sheets, 75 Vt. 335, 55 Atl. 656; Black v. Elkhorn Min. Co.. (C. Ct) 49 Fed. 549; Bingham v. Salene, 15 Or. 208, 14 Pac. 523, 3 Am. St. Rep. 152; Pierce v. Keator, 70 N. Y. 422, 26 Am. Rep. 612.