land

lands, waters, and interests therein.

or LANDS. A term comprehending any ground, soil, or earth whatsoever; as, meadows, pastures, woods, waters, marshes, furzes, and heath. 170 111. 266. An estate of frank tenement at the least. Shep. Touch. 92.

In the technical sense, freeholds are not included within the word "lands." 3 Madd. 588. The term terrcn in Latin was usal to denote land, from terendo, quia vomere teritm/r (because It is broken by th« plou^), and, accordingly, in fines and recoveries, land, L e., terra, has been hdd to mean arable land. Salk. 286; Cowp. 346; Oo. Litfc. 4a; 11 Coke, 55a. But see Oro. Ellz. 476; 4 Bing. 90; Burton, Iteal Prop. 196. See, also, " 'Land' eomprehendeth in its legal signifioanoe any ground, soil, or earth whatsoever. It includes, also, all castles, houses, or other buildings, for they consist of two things, — land, which is the foundation, and structures thereon. Land hath also, in its legal signification, an indefinite extent upwards, as well as downwards." 1 Inst. 4a; 2 P. Wms. 458, note; 5 Ves. 476; 20 Viner, Ired. L. (N. C.) 280; 49 Am. Dec. 379. "Lands" is not as broad a term as "tenements" or "hereditaments," but has been sometimes used as including these., 1 Washb. Real Prop. 9. It does not include incorporeal hereditaments issuing out of lands. 5 Denio (N. Y.) 324.

In the most general sense, comprehends any ground, soil or earth whatsoever; as meadows, pastures, woods, moors, waters, marshes, furzes, and heath. Co. Litt. 4a. The word "land" includes not only the soil, but everything attached to it, whether attached by the course of nature, as trees, herbage, and water, or by the hand of man, as buildings and fences. Mott v. Palmer, 1 N. Y. 572; Nessler v. Neher, 18 Neb. 649, 26 N. W. 471; Higgins Fuel Co. v. Snow, 113 Fed. 433, 51 C. C. A. 267; Lightfoot v. Grove, 5 Heisk. (Tenn.) 477; Johnson v. Richardson, 33 Miss. 464; Mitchell v. Warner, 5 Conn. 517; Myers v. League, 62 Fed. 659, 10 C. C. A. 571, 2 Bl. Comm. 16, 17. Land is the solid material of the earth, whatever may be the ingredients of which it is composed, whether soil, rock, or other substance. Civ. Co.de Cal. § 659. Philosophically, it seems more correct to say that the word "land" means, in law, as in the vernacular, the soil, or portion of the earth's crust; and to explain or justify such expressions as that "whoever owns the land owns the buildings above and the minerals below," upon the view, not that these are within the extension of the term "land," but that they are so connected with it that by rules of law they pass by a conveyance of the land. This view makes "land," as a term, narrower in signification than "realty;" though it would allow an instrument speaking of land to operate co-extensively with one granting realty or real property by either of those terms. But many of the authorities use the expression "land" as including these incidents to the soil. Abbott.

— Accommodation lands. In English law. Lands bought by a builder or speculator, who erects houses thereon, and then leases portions ef them upon an improved ground-rent.

— Bounty lands. Portions of the public domain given or donated to private persons as a bounty for services rendered, chiefly for military service.

— Certificate lands. In Pennsylvania, in the period succeeding the revolution, lands set apart in the western portion of the state, which might be bought with the certificates which the soldiers of that state in the revolutionary army had received in lieu of pay. Cent. Diet.

— Crown lands. In England and Canada, lands belonging to the sovereign personally or to the government or nation, as distinguished from such as have passed into private owner-ship. Demesne lands. see Demesne.

— Donation lands. Lands granted from the public domain to an individual as a bounty, gift, or donation; particularly, in early Pennsylvania history, lands thus granted to soldiers of the revolutionary war.

— Fabric lands. In English law, lands given towards the maintenance. rebuilding, or repairing of cathedral and other churches

— General land office. An office of the United States government, being a division of the department of the interior, having charge of all executive action relating to the public lands, including their survey, sale or other disposition, and patenting; constituted by act of congress in 1812 (Rev. St. § 446 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 255]) and presided over by an officer styled "commissioner of the general land office."

— Land certificate. Upon the registration of freehold land under the English land transfer act, 1875, a certificate is given to the registered proprietor, and similarly upon every transfer of registered land. This registration supersedes the necessity of any further registration in the register counties. Sweet.

— Land court. In American law. A court formerly existing in St. Louis, Mo., having a limited territorial jurisdiction over actions concerning real property, and suits for dower, partition, etc.

— Laud damages. See Damages.

— Land department. That office of the United States government which bas jurisdiction and charge of the public lands, including the secretary of the interior and the commissioner of the general land office and their subordinate officers, and being in effect the department of the interior considered with reference to its powers and duties concerning the public lands. See U. S. v. Winona & St. P. R. Co., 67 Fed. 956, 15 C. C. A. 96 ; Northern Pac. R. Co., v. Barden (C. Ct) 46 Fed. 617.

— Land district. A division of a state or territory, created by federal authority, in which is located a United States land office, with a "register of the land office" and a "receiver of public money," for the disposition of the public lands within the district. See U. S. v. Smith (C. C.) 11 Fed. 491.

— Land-gabel. A tax or rent issuing out of land. Spelman says it was originally a penny for every house. This land-gabel, or land-gavel, in the register of Domesday, was a quit-rent for the site of a house, or the land whereon it stood; the same with what we now call "ground-rent" Wharton.

— Land grant. A donation of public lands to a subordinate government, a corporation, or an individual; as, from the United States to a state, or to a railroad company to aid in the construction of its road.

— Land offices. Governmental offices, subordinate to the general land office, established in various parts of the United States, for the transaction of local business relating to the survey, location, settlement, pre-emption, and sale of the public lands. See "General land office," supra -Land-poor. By this term is generally understood that a man has a great deal of unproductive land, and perhaps is obliged to borrow money to pay taxes; but a man "land-poor" may be largely responsible. Mat-teson v. Blackmer, 46 Mich. 397, 9 N. W. 445.

— Land-reeve. A person whose business it is to overlook certnin paris of a farm or estate ; to attend not only to the woods and hedge-timber, but also to the state of the fences, gates, buildings, private roads, drift-ways, and water-courses ; and likewise to the stocking of commons, and encroachments of every kind, as well as to prevent or detect waste and spoil in general, whether by the tenants or others; and to report the same to the manager or land steward. Enc. Lond.

— Land steward. A person who overlooks or has the management of a farm or estate.

— Land tax. A tax laid upon the legal or beneficial owner of real property, and apportioned upon the assessed value of his land.

— Land tenant. The person actually in possession of land ; otherwise styled the "terre-tenant."

— Land titles and transfer act. An English statute (38 & 39 Viet. c. 87) providing for the establishment of a registry for titles to real property, and making sundry provisions for the transfer of lands and the recording of the evidences thereof. It presents some analogies to the recording laws of the American states.

— Land waiter. In English law. An officer of the custom-house, whose duty is, upon landing any merchandise, to examine, taste, weigh, or measure it, and to take an account thereof. In some ports they also execute the office' of a coast waiter. They are likewise occasionally styled "searchers" and are to attend and join with the patent searcher in the execution of ali cockets for the shipping of goods to be exported to foreign parts; and, in cases where drawbacks on bounties are to be paid to the merchant on the exportation of any goods, they, as well as the patent searchers, are to certify the shipping thereof on the debentures. Enc. Lond.

— Land-warrant. The evidence which the state, on good consideration, gives that the person therein named is entitled to the quantity of land therein specified, the bounds and description of which the owner of the warrant may fix by entry and survey, in the section of country set apart for its location and satisfaction. Neal v. President, etc., of East Tennessee College, 6 Yerg. (Tenn.) 205.

— Mineral lands. In the land laws of the United States. Lands containing deposits of valuable, useful, or precious minerals in such quantities as to justify expenditures in the effort to extract them, and which are more vni-uable for the minerals they contain than for agricultura] or other uses. Northern Pac. R. Co., v. Soderberg, 188 U. S. 526. 23 Sup. Ct. 365, 47 L. Ed. 575; Deffeback v. Hawke, 115 U. S. 392, 6 Sup. Ct. 95, 29 In Ed. 423; Davis v. Wiebbold. 139 U. S. 507, 11 Sup. Ct. 628, 35 L. Ed. 238; Smith v. Hill, 89 CaL 122, 26 Pac. 644; Merrill v. Dixon, 15 Nev. 406.

— Place lands. Lands granted in aid ol a railroad company which are within certain limits on each side of the road, and which become instantly fixed by the adoption of the line of the road. There is a well-defined difference between place lands and "indemnity lands." See Indemnity. See Jackson v. La Moure Co.unty, 1 N. D. 238, 46 N. W. 449.

— Public lands. The general public domain; unappropriated lands; lands belonging to the United States and which are subject to sale or other disposal under general laws, and not reserved or held back for any special governmental or public purpose. Newhali v. Sanger, 92 U. S. 763. 23 In Ed. 769 ; U. S. v. Garretson (C. C ) 42 Fed. 24; Northern Pac. It, Co., v. Hinchman (C. C.) 53 Fed. 526; State v. Telegraph Co, 52 La. Ann 1411, 27 South. 796

— School lands. Public lands of a state set apart by the state (or by congress in a territory) to create, by the proceeds of their sale, a fund for the establishment and maintenance of public schools.

— Seated land. Land that is occupied, cultivated, improved, reclaimed, farmed, or used as a place of residence. Residence without cultivation, or cultivation without residence, or both together, impart to land the character of being seated The term is used, as, opposed to "unseated land," in Pennsylvania tax laws. See Earley v. Euwer, 102 Pa. 340 ; Stoetzel v. Jackson, 105 Pa. 567 ; Kennedy v. Daily, 6 Watts (Pat) 272; Coal Co v. Faies; 55 Pa. 98.

— Swamp and overflowed lands. Lands unfit for cultivation by_ reason of their swampy character and requiring drainage or reclamation to render them available for beneficial use. Such lands, when constituting a portion of the public domain, have generally been granted by congress to the several states within whose limits they lie. See Miller v. Tobin (C. C.) 18 Fed 614; Keeran v. Allen, 33 Cal. 546; Hogaboom v. Ehrhardt, 58 Cal, 233; Thompson v. Thornton, 50 Cal. 144,

— Tide lands. Lands between high and low water mark on the sea or any tidal water; that portion of the shore or beach covered and uncovered by the ehb and flow of the tide. Ron-dell v. Fay, 32 Cal. 354; Oakland v. Oakland Water Front Co.., il8 Cal. 160, 50 Pac. 277; Andrus v. Knott. 12 Or. 501, 8 Pac. 763; Walker v. State Harbor Com'rs, 17 Wall. 650. 21 It Ed. 744.

— Unseated land. A phrase used in the Pennsylvania tax laws to describe land which, though owned by a private person, has not been reclaimed, cultivated, improved, occupied, or made a place of residence. See Seated Land, tupra. And see Stoetzel v. Jackson, 105 Pa. 507; McLeod v. Lloyd, 48 Or. 260, 71 Pac. 799.

A piece of land surrounded by

In many legal connections, is used as if meaning more than the soil or ground, and as if coextensive ■with " realty " and " real property." Philosophically, it seems more correct to say that the word land means, in law as in the vernacular, the soil, or portion of the earth's crust; and to explain or justify such expressions as that whoever owns the laud owns the buildings above and the minerals below, upon the view not that these are within the extension of the term land, but that they are so connected with it that by rules of law they pass by a conveyance of the land. This view makes land, as a term, narrower in signification than realty; though it would allow an instrument speaking of land to operate coextensively with one granting i-ealty or real property by either of those terms. But many of the authorities, such as are cited below, use the expression that ' ' land ' ' means these incidents to the soil. By English statutes, and according to usage in equity jurisprudence, land may be understood as including money left to be expended in land; upon the principle that, in equity, whatever ought to be done may be regarded as done. Land signifies generally not only arable ground, meadow, pasture, woods, moors, waters, &c., but also messuages and houses.

In a more restrained sense, it is arable ground. Jacob; Motley Sf W. Land, in its restrained sense, means the soil; but in its legal acceptation it is a generic term, comprehending every species of ground or earth, as meadows, pastures, woods, moors, marshes, furze, and heath. It includes also messuages (ie. dwellinghouses, with some adjacent land assigned to the use of them, usually called a curtilage), tofts (i.e. places where houses formerly stood), crofts (i.e. small inclosures for pasture, &c., adjoining to dwe Uing-houses), mills, castles, and other buildings; for with the conveyance of the land these structures upon it pass also. And, besides an indefinite extent upwards, it extends downwards to the globe's centre; hence the maxim, cujus est solum ejus est usque ad caelum et ad inferos, or more curtly expressed, cujus est solum, ejus est altum. And water, by a solecism, is held to be a species of land. Wharton. Land has a more comprehensive signification in law than in common parlance; for it comprehends not only ground, but also any thing that may stand thereon, as a house, a castle, or a bam. It has also an or the Uke to overhang another's lands, and whatever is in a direct line between the surface of any land and the centre of the earth belongs to the owner of the surface, so that the word lands comprehends not only the face of the earth, but every thing under it or over It. Brown. Land is a comprehensive term, including standing trees, buildings, fences, stones, and waters; all of which will pass under the general descriptive word land, in a deed. Standing trees must be regarded as part of the land, so far that a sale of growing trees, with a right at any future time to enter and remove them, is an agreement conveying an interest in lands^ which by the statute of frauds must be in writing. Kingsley V. Holbrook, 45 N. H. 313. As used in New York statutes, land includes the land itself, all buildings and trees, and mines, minerals, &c.; and "lands " is coextensive with "lands, tenements, and hereditaments." 1 Rev. Stat. 387, § 2; Id. 750, § 10; 2 7<f. 137, §6. Thus land, in modem New York conveyancing, includes not only the naked earth, but every thing within it, the buildings, trees, fixtures, and fences upon it, &c. Canfleld v. Ford, 28 Barb. 336; Green v. Armstrong, 1 Den. 550; Mott v. Palmer, 1 N. Y. 564, 569; Baker u. Johnson, 2 Hill, 342. In order to pass title to land, the word land, or something equivalent, should be used. A grant of a " stream and pond of water, and saw-mill thereunto belonging," does not convey to the grantee the land covered by the waters of the stream and pond. Nostrand v. Durland, 21 Barb. 478. Lands, in a will, unless restrained by something else, is synonymous with "real estate," and sufficient to carry a future or contingent, as well as present, freehold estate. Pond v. Bergh, 10 Paige, 140. The term landed estate, in a devise, is not necessarily descriptive merely of the realty, as distinguished from the personalty, but may have the effect to carry a fee. Bradstreet v. Clarke, 12 Wend. 601. A devise using the word land, and no other, to designate the subject of it, will not pass rents reserved on a lease in fee, nor the right of entry under the condition annexed to the fee. Herrington v. Budd, 5 Den. 321. A devise, in general terms, of the testator's lands in a county, passes his right to rents under perpetual leases on lands in such county. Hunter v. Hunter, 17 Barb. 25, 86. A contract by the former husband of a woman " immediately to deliver up to her full and complete possession of the land," was held to mean, under the circumstances, the land, house, cistern, orchard, &c., then in his possession, in as good condition as they were at the time of the agreement, natural deterioration, decay, and in- The word land, when used alone, in Dutch deeds, means arable land only. Van Gorden V. Jackson, & Johns. 440. In the Illinois mechanic's lien law, § 20, land means the land with such improvements as there are upon it at the time of the execution of the mortgage. Croskey v. Northwestern Manuf. Co., 48 III. 481. Houses, fixtures, improvements, and even neat-cattle, horses, and mules, when attached to and used on a plantation, are within the term landed estate, in a statute authorizing taxation. Police Jury of St. Mary v. Harris, 10 La. Aim. 676. Under 1 Rev. Stat. 388, § 3, — which declares that the terms " land, real estate, and real property," as there used, include the land itself, all buildings and other articles erected upon or affixed to the same, all trees and underwood growing thereon, and all mines, minerals, quarries, and fossils in and under the same, except mines belonging to the state, — iron gas mains or pipes belonging to a gas company, and laid, not on their own land, but under the streets of a city, are not real estate for the purposes of taxation. People ex rel. Citizens' Gas Light Co. V. Board of Assessors, 39 N. Y. 81. Land is used in Tenn. Code, § 2420, regulating descents, as including not only lands, tenements, and hereditaments, but also all rights thereto and interests therein. Alexander V. Miller, 7 Heisk. 65. Lands and tenements. A grant of " all my lands and tenements, wherever situate," is sufficient to convey any freehold interest of the gra'ntor in any real property, and will pass a contingent remainder. By the term land, a reversion or remainder will pass, and a future estate, dependent on a precedent estate, is a remainder by the statute. The word tenements embraces not only what may be inherited, but whatever may be holden in tenure. Pond v. Bergh, 10 Paige, 140. A joint^stock mining company borrowed money on debentures, whereby they charged '' all the lands, tenements, and estate of the said company, and all their undertaking," as security therefor. It was held that neitlier unpaid calls nor future calls were within those terms; and that, in winding up, simple-contract creditors were entitled to resort to the assets of the company other than the real estate, and the " undertaking," as defined by this statute. King v. Marshall, 10 Jur. N. s. 921. Land titles and transfer act. The Stat. 38 & 39 Vict. ch. 87, passed in 1875, for the establishment of a land-registry for the registration of titles to land, containing various provisions in reference to the transmission of land, and unregistered dealings with registered land, &c., analogous to the recording or registry laws, so long and widely used in the United States. Moz- Un Sr W. Vict. ch. 18, passed in 1845, in which the clauses gathered from a great number of previous acts of parliament, authorizing acquisition of lands by public companies for the corporate uses, were consolidated. It embraced England and Ireland; and was amended by 23 & 24 Vict. ch. 106, passed in 1860, and by 32 & 33 Vict. ch. IB, passed in 1869. A similar act, Stat. 8 & 9 Vict. ch. 19, for Scotland, was amended by 23 & 24 Vict, ch. 106. The object of these general acts is said to be, to provide legislative clauses, in a convenient form, for incorporation by reference in future special acts of parliament for taking lands, with or without the consent of their respective owners, for the promotion of railways and other public undertakings.

A covenant which goes with the land, [conveyed by the deed in which it is expressed,] as being annexed to the estate, and which cannot be separated from the land, and transferred without it. 4 Kent's Com. 472, note. A covenant is said to run with the land, when not only the original parties [to the deed of conveyance] or their representatives, but each successive owner of the land, will be entitled to its benefit, or be liable, (as the case may be,) to its obligation. 1 Steph. Com. 455, and note (r). Burton's Real Prop. 157. Or, in other words, it is so called when either the liability to perform it, or the right to take advantage of it, passes to the assignee of the land. 1 Smith's Leading Cases, 27, note. Spencer's case: 5 Co. 16 a. 4 Kent's Com. 470 — 478. See 17 Wendell's R. 136. U. S. Digest and Supplement, Covenant. A covenant to pay rent, to produce title deeds, or for renewal, are covenants which run with the land. 4 Kent's Com. 473. COVENANT TO STAND SEISED TO USES.