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WILLIAMS' CASE. 209
An application for the sale of the real estate of a single infant
can only be sustained because of the wasting, depreciating, or
unproductive nature of it, and the necessity of obtaining for him
an adequate maintenance from that, his only property; and the
reasonable certainty, or very strong probability, that by a sale, the
proceeds may be invested in some manner nearly or altogether as
safe, and much more productive than the land itself, by its annual
rents, or by its reasonably probable appreciation of value in the
lapse of some ten or twenty years during the minority of its owner.
But where the application is made on behalf of a plurality of
infants, who hold as joint-tenants or tenants in common, although
these reasons for a sale may not be shewn to exist with the same
force, or to the same extent; yet as, in general, it is much more
beneficial to every one to hold in severalty, than as co-tenants
with others, it must, in most cases, be to the interest and advantage
of such infants to have a partition made of their estate; (w) and
therefore, if it should be shewn, that the real estate is of such a
nature, that a partition cannot be made of it, without loss, or dis-
advantage to the parties; and, that a sale then, or at some future
period, must be made, in order to effect a division of its value
among its owners, that circumstance of the indivisible nature of
the estate may be taken into the estimate as an additional reason
why a sale should then be made as called for. (x)
Here the application for a sale has been made by the widowed
mother of the infants in their behalf; and all the circumstances
shew, that a sale would be for their interest and advantage. The
infants have no other source of revenue than this farm, which con-
sists of two distinct tracts of land, the one held as chiefly or alto-
gether valuable, because of its furnishing wood for the other; and
the principal tract incapable of partition into four parts without
much loss or disadvantage because of its valuable improvements of
mills; and a large amount in value of other perishable edifices;
and which principal tract, from its location along the margin of
two water-courses, and being intersected by much frequented pub-
lic roads is exposed to great injury from freshets and depredations
along its borders. These and the other circumstances mentioned
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(w) Abell v. Heathcote, 4 Bro. C. C. 284; Oates v. Brydon, 3 Burr, 1898.—
(x) But if all the heirs be minors, the estate cannot be sold by any preceding ground
merely on the provisions of the act to direct descents, until the eldest arrives at age,
1820, ch. 191, s. 9,
27 v.3
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