The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 182: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and Circuit and District Courts of the United States, December, 1910-January, 1911. Page: 84
xi, 1023 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this legislative document.
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182 FEDERAL REPORTER.
intended to avoid such interference as indiscriminate cutting would
produce to the successful operation of the trees for turpentine pur-
poses at the same time, and the destruction of the boxed trees by
worms communicated by felled and decaying timber. Therefore it is
a reasonable interpretation of the intention of the parties to the orig-
inal contract to say that it embraced all the timber of every kind and
description on the land, except the specified cypress trees, without ref-
erence to size or condition. Eight years were allowed the lessee for
utilizing the timber purchased under the prescribed terms of removal.
A review of the cases deciding like questions discloses a wide con-
flict of authority as to whether one purchasing growing timber under
a contract limiting the time within which it must be removed loses
title to all the timber not removed within that time. Several Michigan
cases construing timber reservations in deeds to land have been cited
by counsel in support of defendant's contention that, under this con-
tract, the cutting of any timber on such quarter section in the absence
of a forfeiture clause would not defeat his title to the fallen timber
or other wood; that his title to the timber was absolute, and the lapse
of time provided for the cutting would not divest the title thereto.
Hodges v. Buell, 134 Mich. 162, 95 N. W. 1078; Buckwalter v. Hutch-
erson (Ky.) 66 S. W. 603. But on this phase of the contract we have
fortunately the benefit of the light of an interpretation of our own
(Florida) Supreme Court, construing this identical contract. Wefel
v. Williams & Pritchett, 58 Fla. 538, 50 South. 679. That court did
not find in the instrument any limitation upon'the right to turpentine,
but a "period only" in which the grantee was to enjoy the privilege
for a limited time of entering and cutting the timber provided it was
done "according to the conditions of 'the contract." It necessarily fol-
lowed in the view of the court with this restriction on the manner of
cutting that "large equities remained in the grantor:"
In the light of this construction, I am inclined to the view that the
purport of the original contract was a conveyance of a present estate
in all the timber on the land defeasible as to all the timber standing,
and being on the land at the expiration of the lease. The limitation
is only as to time and the way the pine trees were to be removed by
the grantee. It appears that by the efflux of time the entire tract of
9,000 acres are available, subject as ever to the original restriction im-
posed when the grantede, having once begun to cut the pine trees upon
a quarter section, shall cut down and remove all the saw logs on said
quarter section before going upon another quarter section." The
question whether or not the grantee has or has not complied with the
requirements of the contract to cut quarter section by quarter section,
or has exhausted his rights to cut more, by having once exercised that
privilege, will depend for its determination upon the proofs yet to be
submitted in the cause. The reserved rights of the grantors to stop
further cutting until the provision for cutting by quarter section
should be complied with would seem of itself to preclude any forfei-
ture of grantee's right to the timber. For aught that is so far dis-
closed, the cutting of the timber in the prescribed manner may have
been waived by the grantors. That the right of entry may not have
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The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 182: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and Circuit and District Courts of the United States, December, 1910-January, 1911., legislative document, 1911; Saint Paul, Minnesota. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38228/m1/95/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.