the larger would coalesce, and the term be "merged" or sunk in the larger estate, whereupon B. would become tenant in fee simple in possession.

WILLIAMS, REAL PROP. (17th ed.), 236-238. This bargain and sale for a year, followed by a release, is the modern conveyance by lease and release . and although the efficiency of this method was at first doubted, it was, for more than two centuries, the common means of conveying lands in this country. It will be observed that the bargain and sale (or lease as it is called) for a year derived its effect from the Statute of Uses; the release was quite independent of that statute, having existed long before, and being as ancient as the common law itself. The Statute of Uses was employed in the conveyance by lease and release only for the purpose of giving to the intended releasee, without his actually entering on the lands, such an estate as would enable him to receive the release. When this estate for one year was obtained by the lease, the Statute of Uses had performed its part, and the fee simple was conveyed to the releasee by the release alone. The release would, before the Statute of Uses, have conveyed the fee-simple to the releasee, supposing him to have obtained that possession for one year, which, after the statute, was given him by the lease. After the passing of the Statute of Frauds it became necessary that every bargain and sale of lands for a year should be put into writing, as no pecuniary rent was ever reserved, the consideration being usually five shillings, the receipt of which was acknowledged, though in fact it was never paid. And the bargain and sale, or lease for a year, was usually made by deed, though this was not absolutely necessary. It was generally dated the day before the date of the release, though executed on the same day as the release, immediately before the execution of the latter.

SUG. GILB. USES, 232. A conveyance by lease and release is, like a bargain and sale and covenant to stand seised, what

is termed an innocent conveyance. It will not, therefore, create a discontinuance or operate as a forfeiture or destroy a contingent remainder, although it may exclude a contingent remainder by uniting the particular estate with the reversion. -Sugden's note.

4 KENT. COM., 494-496. Of Lease and Release.-This is the usual mode of conveyance in England because it does not require the trouble of enrolment. It was the mode universally in practice in New York until the year 1788. The revision of the statute law of the State at that period, which re-enacted all the English statute law deemed proper and applicable, and which repealed the British statutes in force in New York while it was a colony, removed all apprehension of the necessity of enrolment of deeds of bargain and sale, and left that short, plain and excellent mode of conveyance to its free operation. The consequence was, that the conveyance by lease and release, which required two deeds or instruments instead of one, fell immediately into total disuse and will never be revived.

Of Bargain and Sale.-This is the mode of conveyance most prevalent in the United States, and it was in universal use in New York after 1788, and prior to the introduction of the grant by the Revised Statutes, in January, 1830. . . Nothing can be more liberal than the rules of law, as to the words requisite to create a bargain and sale. There must be a valuable consideration, and then any words that will raise a use will amount to a bargain and sale.

N. Y. REAL PROP. LAW, § 211. Deeds of bargain and sale, and of lease and release may continue to be used; and are to be deemed grants, subject to all the provisions of law in relation thereto.

CHAPTER II.

MODERN STATUTORY FORMS.

WILLIAMS, REAL PROP. (17th ed.), 232. In modern times, down to the year 1841, the kind of conveyance employed, on every ordinary purchase of a freehold estate, was called a lease and release; and for every such transaction, two deeds were always required.

ID., 238. This cumbrous contrivance of two deeds to every purchase continued in constant use down to the year 1841, when the Act was passed to which we have before referred.1 This art provided that every deed of release of a freehold estate, which should be expressed to be made in pursuance of the act, should be as effectual as if the releasing party had also executed, in due form, a lease for a year, for giving effect to such release, although no such lease for a year should be executed.

In the year 1845 it was provided by the Act to amend the law of real property that after the 1st of October, 1845, all corporeal tenements and hereditaments shall, as regards the conveyance of the immediate freehold thereof, be deemed to lie in grant as well as in livery. We have seen that, at common law, corporeal hereditaments were said to lie in livery, as being transferable by delivery of possession; while incorporeal hereditaments were said to lie in grant, because a deed of grant was required to convey them, if desired to be transferred apart from the possession of anything corporeal. Since this enactment, therefore, a simple deed of grant has been sufficient for the transfer of all freehold estates in possession, or corporeal hereditaments. And the method so in-.

'Stat. 4 & 5 Vict., c. 21. repealed as obsolete by Stat. 37 & 38 Vict., c 96.

troduced of conveying freeholds by deed of grant has ever since superseded all others in practice.

3 WASHBURN, REAL PROP. (5th ed.), 380. Many of the States have prescribed forms of deeds in their statutes; but this has generally been regarded rather as a matter of direction and declaration that such a form would be sufficient, than that it should be required. Most of these statutes, in fact, directly or indirectly refer to the common-law modes as familiar and effectual forms of conveyance. Thus, while the form of deed in common use in Massachusetts is borrowed from the ancient charter of feoffment, modified by a declaration of the uses to which the estate is to be held, the statute expressly refers to "bargain and sale,” and “other like conveyance of an estate," and declares that "a deed of quitclaim and release, of the form in common use in this State, shall be sufficient to pass all the estate which the grantor could lawfully convey by a deed of bargain and sale."

ID., 384. It may be said, to sum up the foregoing remarks, that in almost all of the United States a writing which contains a grantor, a grantee, a description of the land or interest therein granted, and words which may be construed to imply a grant by the grantor to the grantee, is a sufficient deed, if executed according to the law of the State where the land is situated. Such a deed is not strictly a deed of feoffment, as no livery of seisin is necessary; nor is it a deed operating by the statute of uses. It is rather a deed resulting from the various statutes which have been from time to time enacted in the various States, and it is substantially and practically the same in all the States. The effect of these statutes is well described in two Maine cases previously cited, in which the court says that, under the statutes of the State, a person owning real estate, having a right of entry on it, whether seised of it or not, may convey such interest, or any part of it, by a deed acknowledged and re'Mass. Pub. Stat., c. 120, SS 2, 4.

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corded, with such limitations as the grantor pleases, provided they do not violate any rule of public policy. Thus, in Wyman v. Brown,1 Walter, J., says: also of opinion that effect may be given to such deeds (of a future estate) by force of our own statutes, and independently of the statute of Uses. Our deeds are not framed to convey a use merely, relying upon the statute to annex the legal title to the use. They purport to convey the land itself, and being duly acknowledged and recorded, as our statutes require, operate more like feoffments than like conveyances under the statute of Uses." This being the case, there seems to be little necessity left for the operation of the statute of Uses, although it is often mentioned by the courts as supporting deeds of future interests. There are, however, cases where the conveyance does not contain suitable words to imply a grant, but does contain words which may fairly imply a covenant or agreement in regard to the title of the land. In such cases, the statute of Uses is still sometimes relied upon to give effect to these deeds as deeds of bargain and sale, or covenant to stand seised. A more effectual and common way of enforcing such instruments, where a valuable consideration has been paid, is to apply to a court of equity to compel a valid legal conveyance of the land. Under the statutes before referred to, the deeds operate as deeds of feoffment; yet livery of seisin is unnecessary, the deed itself vesting the seisin in the grantee.

4 KENT. COM., 301, note. Lord Hardwicke is reported to have said, in the course of his opinion, in Hopkins v. Hopkins (1 Atk. Rep. 591), that the Statute of Uses had no other effect than to add, at most, three words to a conveyance. This was rather too strongly expressed; but I presume the abolition of uses with us will not have much greater effect. It was the abolition of a phantom. The word grant is not more intelligible to the world at large than the words bargain and sale; and the fiction indulged for 200 years, that 1 50 Me. 139.

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