Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1879-03-28
Buying a Farm.

An oral contract for a farm is moi
binding in the courts on either party.
Nor is written proposition to sell
binding until it is accepted, and the
proposer again agrees to accept it. A
man proposing in writing to SELL, can
retractshis offer any time before it is &C
cepted, unless he gives in his PROPOSE
ton certain time for it to be accepted
or rejected.
If a proposition to sell, specifying all
the conditions, is made, and the second
concludes to take it, and proceeds at
great expense to buy stock and imple-
ments to carry on the farm, and should
move his family there to take posses
sion and close up the bargain by tax
ing deed and paying the money, if
notice of the acceptance had not been
given the owner, and he had not agreed
to the condition of the acceptance, the
purchaser could not compel a convey
ance, nor recover damages for expense
and trouble incurred in going to take
possession.
A proposition in writing to sell a
farm for a certain price means the pres
ent time, and to be binding must be ac-
cepted then. Or, if the proposition is
sent by mail, the reply must be re-
turned by due course of the mails. The
proposition does not mean that he will
take that sum at any future time, un-
less so specially stated. A deed for
land may be very simple instrument
to make it binding, so far as the con-
tracing parties are concerned. 1t is
not really necessary that the deed
should be acknowledged or witnessed,
for in cases where such informal deeds
have been made courts have rendered
DEGREES ordering the specific perform
ance of the contract. But where cred
itors or third parties are interested,
such informal deeds would be set
aside. For this purpose all the condi-
tions of the law of the State, and the
form of the deed, and in signing and
acknowledging, must be strictly COM
piled with.
Care should be taken in the descrip-
ton of the lands sold. More trouble
occurs in this particular than all 9TH
ers. II the land is particularly de-
scribed by meteS and bounds, and as a
certain subdivision of the Government
surveys, it is immaterial about stating
the number of acres. A deed for the
farm conveys all the fences standing
n the farm, and all the buildings put
on by the owner. 1t also conveys all
the boards, rails, posts or wire which
have been used on the farm for fencing
it, even if they have been taken down
and piled away. But if the owner had
procured new materials for fencing be-
fore selling, and said materials had not
been used for that purpose, a deed for
the farm does not convey said lumber.
If tenant occupies farm, and by
consent of the owner builds temporary
houses, pens or stables, the deed will
not hold them, but the tenant can re-
move them. If the purchaser bought
| ignorant of the facts in the case, he has
his action against the assignor for
damages. If manure is laying about
the stables, yards, or is hauled out to
the fields for use, the purchaser takes
them with the farm. If, however, the
owner had previously gathered said
manure in close heaps, and had sold it
TO another person, it has been held that
thus it became personal property, and
did not go with the farm.
'' Gene 'eeded ths' grow