With regard to emblements, or profits of land ſowed by tenant for years, there is this difference between him, and tenant for life: that where the term of tenant for years depends upon a certainty, as if he holds from midſummer for ten years, and in the laſt year he ſows a crop of corn, and it is not ripe and cut before midſummer, the end of his term, the landlord ſhall have it; for the tenant knew the expiration of his term, and therefore it was his own folly to ſow what he never could reap the profits of[1]. But where the leaſe for years depends upon an uncertainty; as, upon the death of the eſſor, being himſelf only tenant for life, or being a huſband ſeiſed in right of his wife; or if the term of years be determinable upon a life or lives; in all theſe caſes, the eſtate for years not being certainly to expire at a time foreknown, but merely by the act of God, the tenant, or his executors, ſhall have the emblements in the ſame manner, that a tenant for life or his executors ſhall be intitled thereto[2]. Not ſo, if it determine by the act of the party himſelf; as if tenant for years does any thing that amounts to a forfeiture: in which caſe the emblements ſhall go to the leſſor, and not to the leſſee, who hath determined his eſtate by his own default[3].
II. The ſecond ſpecies of eſtates not freehold are eſtates at will. An eſtate at will is where lands and tenements are let by one man to another, to have and to hold at the will of the leſſor; and the tenant by force of this leaſe obtains poſſeſſion[4]. Such tenant hath no certain indefeaſible eſtate, nothing that can be aſſigned by him to any other; for that the leſſor may determine his will, and put him out whenever he pleaſes. But every eſtate at will is at the will of both parties, landlord and tenant, ſo that either of them may determine his will, and quit his connexions with the other at his own pleaſure[5]. Yet this muſt be underſtood with ſome reſtriction. For, if the tenant at will ſows his land,
