decided to be real estate, but wood cut and corded for sale is personal property. A statue exhibited for sale in a workshop is personal property, but when placed upon a permanent foundation (although not fastened to it), as an ornament in front of a house, has been held to be a part of the realty. Chairs in a theater and screwed to the floor, as they can not stand alone, are considered a part of the realty; but gas fixtures and mirrors, made to order for the house, and attached to the freehold, but removable without injury thereto, are not deemed a part of the realty. Before emancipation in the United States, slaves, which by the Federal Constitution were recognized as persons, were in several of the States declared by law to be real estate;[1] and in one State of the Union, Wisconsin, the one species of property which is especially typical of mobility, and is of no value apart from its capability of motion, namely, the rolling stock of railroads, has been by law made real estate. Shares in the national debt of France, as well as stock on the bank of France—instrumentalities which in the United States would be regarded as personal property in its most typical form—may by French law be made real estate, and as such be administered on.
Some years ago the following curious experience occurred in one of the New England States: A person rented a farm, and on the expiration of his lease attempted to remove from the estate the manure which had accumulated during his holding, assuming that he had the right to it as personal property. The owner of the farm, on the other hand, forbade the removal of the manure, on the ground that it was real estate, and so a part of the farm. The case found its way into the courts, and on its trial the lessee and defendant who appeared for himself, attempted to substantiate the legality of his proceedings in the following manner: Addressing the judge after the facts in the case had been established, he asked, "Was the hay in the barn personal property?" Judge "Certainly." Lessee: "Were the horses and cattle personal property?" Judge: "Without dispute." Lessee: "Then will your Honor please to tell me how personal property can eat personal property and produce (dung) real estate?" The decision was nevertheless in favor of the owner of the farm, or the plaintiff. Subsequently the courts of New York decided that manure accumulated in connection with a livery stable, not being an agricultural product pertaining to a farm, was not real estate but personal property.
In a case in the State of Tennessee, where a person who had entered a neighbor's field and removed corn on the stalk was
- ↑ In American colonial day slaves were regarded as belonging to the land, and figured in tax valuations as real property.
