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640 THE CAPE SABLE COMPANY'S CASE,
out disadvantage, passed at every season, and immediately from
hand to hand; the alienation and transfer of land from one to
another has been every where required to be made and authenti-
cated with a higher degree of solemnity than mere personal estate.
And as agriculture has always been regarded as the first of pur-
suits, and of the highest importance to the commonwealth; (t) no
compulsory alienation has been allowed to be made, in any case,
to the prejudice of husbandry, or so as to endanger the loss of any
then growing crop, (u) For these reasons it seems to have been
every where regarded as a general rule, that land should not be
liable to be taken in execution and sold, where there was a suffi-
ciency of moveables to be found for the satisfaction of the debt, (w)
And, following out the reason of this general rule, it has always
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(t) Co. Litt. 85; Vattel, b. 1, c. 7. —(u) Co. Litt. 55; Land Ho. Assis. 121. —
(w) 2 Inst. 18, 394; Gilb. Execution, 3; Gilb. Co. Exch. 123; 7 Petersdorffs,
Abr. 527, note; Code Napoleon, by Barret, Introd. 328; 3 Southern Review, 30, 31;
Bowaman o. Reeve, Prec. Chan. 577; Anonymous, 9 Mod. 66.
The English statute of 1285, (13 Ed. 1, e. 18, ) which gave the elegit, by which
all the debtor's personalty, or a moiety of his lands might be taken in execution, in
favour of husbandry, excepts his oxen and beasts of the plough.
By an act of the Provincial government, it is set forth, that 'whereas many of the
inhabitants of this province are and have been exceedingly grieved and burthened
by executions laid upon them in the summer time, when it is not possible for them
to procure effects for the payment and satisfaction of their creditors, by means
whereof they are often times kept in prison a long time, and thereby disabled from
making and tending their crops, to the great prejudice, if not ruin, of many of the
inhabitants of this province, being thereby left destitute of any means to satisfy their
creditors. '—1715, ch. 33. —And by another act it is declared, that no slave shall be
sold by any administrator for the payment of debts; nor any execution served upon
any slave so long as there shall be other goods of the deceased sufficient to satisfy
the debt, but shall be kept and employed for the benefit of the creditors and orphans,
until the crop begun in the life-time of the deceased, shall be finished. —1715, ch.
39, t, 8.
By a British statute passed about the year 1816, for the purpose of regulating the
execution of legal process, so as to be consistent with good husbandry, it is enacted,
that the sheriff shall not carry off, or sell for the purpose of being carried off from
any lands, let to farm, any straw, threshed or unthreshed, or any straw of crops
growing, or any chaff, colder, or any turnips, or any manure, compost, ashes, or
sea-weed, in any case whatever; nor after notice, any hay or vetches, nor any roots
or vegetables being the produce of such lands, where, according to any written
agreement with the landlord, the same is to be expended thereon; but shall sell the
same under certain regulations, to be there used and expended, according to the
custom of the country; or according to the written agreement, as the case may be.
And by the sixth section of this statute, all crops and produce so sold, and all cattle
and implements of husbandry employed and used in and about the same, are pro-
tected from distress. —56 Geo. 3, c. 50; Bradby on Distress, 84; Watson on the
Office of Sheriff, 180.
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