if a tenant for his own life sows the lands and dies before harvest, his executors shall have the emblements or profits of the crop for the estate was determined by the act of God, and it is a maxim in the law, that actus Dei nemini facit injuriam. The representatives, therefore, of the tenant for life shall have the emblements to compensate for the labor and expense of tilling, manuring, and sowing the lands; and also for the encouragement of husbandry, which, being a public benefit, tending to the increase and plenty of provisions, ought to have the utmost security and privilege that the law can give it. Wherefore by the feodal law, if a tenant for life died between the beginning of September and the end of February, the lord, who was entitled to the reversion, was also entitled to the profits of the whole year; but if he died between the beginning of March and the end of August the heirs of the tenant received the whole. From hence our law of emblements seems to have been derived, but with very considerable improvements. So it is also, if a man be tenant for the life of another, and cestuy que vie, or he on whose life the land is held, dies after the corn sown, the tenant pur auter vie shall have the emblements. The same is also the rule, if a life-estate be determined by the act of law. Therefore if a lease be made to husband and wife during coverture (which gives them a determinable estate for life), and the husband sows the land, and afterward they are divorced a vinculo matrimonii, the husband shall have the emblements in this case; for the sentence of divorce is the act of law. But if an estate for life be determined by the tenant's own act (as, by forfeiture for waste committed; or, if a tenant during widowhood thinks proper to marry), in these, and similar cases, the tenants, having thus determined the estate by their own acts, shall not be entitled to take the emblements. The doctrine of emblements extends not only to corn sown, but to roots planted, or other annual artificial profit, but it is otherwise of fruit-trees, grass, and the like; which are not planted annually at the expense and labor of the tenant, but are either a permanent or natural

profit of the earth. For when a man plants a tree he cannot be presumed to plant it in contemplation of any present profit; but merely with a prospect of its being useful to himself in future, and to future successions of tenants. The advantages also of emblements are particularly extended to the parochial clergy by the statute 28 Hen. VIII. c. 11. For all persons, who are presented to any ecclesiastical benefice, or to any civil office, are considered as tenants for their own lives, unless the contrary be expressed in the form of donation.

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LEAKE, LAND LAW, 194. The case of general occupancy, where there is no limitation to a special occupant, is now supplied by statute. By the Wills Act, 1 Vict. c. 26 (repealing but substantially re-enacting the statutes 29 Car. II. c. 3, s. 12, and 14 Geo. II., c. 20, which previously enacted to nearly the same effect), the general power of disposition by will thereby given is expressly extended "to estates pur autre vie, whether there shall or shall not be any special occupant thereof" (sec. 3). And it is enacted. by sec. 6, that in case there shall be no special occupant of any estate pur autre vie, whether freehold or customary freehold, tenant right, customary or copyhold, or of any other tenure, and whether a corporeal or incorporeal hereditament, it shall go to the executor or the administrator of the party that had the estate thereof by virtue of the grant; and if the same shall come to the executor or administrator either by reason of a special occupancy or by virtue of this act, it shall be assets in his hands, and shall go and be applied and distributed in the same manner as the personal estate of the testator or intestate."

ID., 219. An estate for life may be made determinable by a conditional limitation; as, if an estate be granted to a woman so long as she is unmarried, or until marriage, or during widowhood; or to a husband and wife during the coverture; or so long as the grantee shall dwell in a certain house, or until the grantee be promoted to a benefice, or for

any like uncertain duration included in the life. Such limitations create estates for life, which are liable to determine and cease by the event happening according to the condition during the life; the next vested estate in remainder then takes effect in possession, and intervening contingent remainders, if there be any, are excluded.

An estate for life may be limited to determine on alienation; or upon charging or attempting to charge the estate, or the rents and profits; so it may be limited to cease upon bankruptcy or insolvency. Conditions in restraint of alienation cannot be annexed to an estate tail or an estate in fee simple, and in such cases they are void and inoperative as being repugnant to an inseparable incident of the estate.

WILLIAMS, REAL PROP. (17th ed.), 130. A tenant for life may grant over the land he holds for so long as he shall live; but he could not by the common law make any lawful disposition to endure for a longer period. And his commonlaw right of alienation is still all that he can exercise for his own exclusive profit. But at the present day a tenant for life has large powers of disposing of the land he holds, for the benefit of those entitled thereto after his death, as well as himself. Powers are means of conveying land independently of the right of alienation incident to the estate in the land. Under the modern system of settling land on one for life, and then on his sons successively in tail, no valid disposition of the land could be made by virtue of the estates so created, except for the father's lifetime, until a son attained twenty-one; when he could join in barring the entail. This was obviously inconvenient; and it therefore became usual to give to the tenant for life under a settlement powers of leasing the settled land for certain terms on specified conditions; and leases granted under such powers remained good after death, for the benefit of his successors under the settlement. . .

But now the Settled Land Act, 1882, gives to every tenant for life in possession of land under a settle

ment large powers of leasing and also a power of selling or exchanging the settled land. Since these extensive statutory powers have been conferred on a tenant for life, it has been no longer usual to insert in settlements the old express powers of appointment, which were formerly used to effect the same objects.

4 KENT COM., 27. In New York an estate pur autre vie, whether limited to heirs or otherwise, is deemed a freehold only during the life of the grantee or devisee, and after his death it is deemed a chattel real. The interest of every occupant, general or special, is, therefore, in New York, totally annihilated; but the statute provisions in other States vary considerably upon this subject. In New Jersey, the act of 1795 is the same as that in New York; but the Virginia statute of 1792 follows in the footsteps of the English statute, and leaves a scintilla of interest, in certain events, in the heir as a special occupant; and this I apprehend to be the construction of the statute in Maryland of 1799. In Massachusetts, on the death of the tenant pur autre vie, the law is said to give the estate to his heir; and yet, in that and other States, where the real and personal estates of intestates are distributed in the same way and manner, the question does not seem to be material.

N. Y. REAL PROP. LAW, $ 24. An estate for the life of a third person, whether limited to heirs or otherwise, shall be deemed a freehold only during the life of the grantee or devisee; after his death it shall be deemed a chattel real.

§ 210. . . A greater estate or interest does not pass by any grant or conveyance than the grantor possessed or could lawfully convey at the time of the delivery of the deed.

§ 212. A conveyance made by a tenant for life or years, of a greater estate than he possesses, or can lawfully convey, does not work a forfeiture of his estate, but passes to the grantee all the title, estate or interest which such tenant can lawfully convey.

MASS. PUB. STAT., c. 125, § I. When a person dies seised of land, tenements, or hereditaments, or of any right thereto, or entitled to any interest therein, in fee simple or for the life of another, not having lawfully devised the same, they shall descend, subject to his debts and to the rights of the husband or wife and minor children of the deceased, as provided in the two preceding chapters.

(b) Legal Life Estates.

(1) CURTESY.

LIT., § 35. Tenant by the curtesie of England is, where a man taketh a wife seised in fee simple or in fee taile generall, or seised as heir in taile especiall, and hath issue by the same wife, male or female, borne alive, albeit the issue after dieth or liveth, yet if the wife dies, the husband shall hold the land during his life by the law of England. And he is called tenant by the curtesie of England, because this is used in no other realme but in England onely.

And some have said that he shall not be tenant by the curtesie unlesse the childe, which he hath by his wife, be heard crie; for by the crie it is proved that the child was borne alive. Therefore Quære.

Co. LIT., 29, a. And first, of what seisin a man shall be tenant by the curtesie. There is in law a twofold seisin, viz., a seisin in deed, and a seisin in law, whereof more shall be said, secs. 468 and 681. And here Littleton intendeth a seisin in deed, if it may be attained unto. As if a man dieth seised of lands in fee simple or fee taile generall, and these lands descend to his daughter, and she taketh a husband and hath issue, and dyeth before any entry, the husband shall not be tenant by the curtesie, and yet in this case she had a seisin in law; but if she or her husband had during her life entred, he should have been tenant by the curtesie. A man seised of an advowson or rent in fee hath issue a daughter,