ton v. Salmon, 1 H. Bl. R. 258, hereinbefore considered, that adaptation of the thing to the land, and its comparative worthlessness apart from the local use that was made of it, were entitled to a controlling influence in determining whether it was to be treated as a chattel or as part of the realty. It was remarked of that case: "The ground of the decision was, that the pans had a specific relation to the inheritance. They were adapted to use in connection with the inheritance, and, by removal, would lose all the value which that adaptation gave them, and become merely old iron. This was the point on which the case turned. The specific form which the iron had received, fitted the pans for use with, and made them valuable in relation to, the inheritance, and not valuable as property disconnected with the inheritance." In considering that principle in connection with the case before them, it was further said: "Applying this principle to the case of a factory, the wheel or engine which furnishes the motive power, and all that part of the gearing and machinery which have special relation to the building with which it is connected, would belong to the freehold; while an independent machine, like a loom, which, if removed, still remains a loom, and can be used as such. wherever it is wanted and power can be applied to it, will still retain its character of personalty." There is a case, The Farmer's Loan and Trust Company v. Hendrickson, 25 Barb. 484, where the court carried this principle of particular adaptation to the extent of holding that the rolling stock of a railroad company, such as locomotive engines, passenger, baggage and freight cars, hand cars, snow ploughs, &c., were fixtures. This was a decision of the supreme court, second district. In the opinion of the court, per S. B. Strong, P. J., he says: "I have examined many authorities to ascertain whether there are any clear and well-settled principles which are applicable to, and will control, that question. The authorities are numerous, but they are by no means consistent as to principles or their application. The best, although by no means a universal, rule is, that in order that articles originally personal should be considered as annexed to the freehold so as to become fixtures, they must either be fastened to the realty, or what is clearly a part of it, or must be placed upon the land with a manifest intent that they shall permanently remain there, and should be in some way peculiarly fitted to something that is actually fastened upon it, and essential, if not absolutely necessary to its profitable enjoyment." He refers to a number of cases, and among them to an unreported case in the court of appeals, in 1847, where it was decided that a stone slab, settled in, but not fastened to, or inclosed by, a frame, in a dairy house, was annexed to the realty. (See p. 490.) This decision was made in 1857. That decision was denied to be good authority, by the same court, in another district, in 1858, in Stevens v. Buffalo & N. Y. City R. R. Co. 31 Barb. 590;. and it was decided that the rolling stock of railroads was personal property, and in no sense a fixture. But the principle upon which that case was decided was not denied or questioned. The application of the principle to that kind of property constituted the point of difference of opinion between the two decisions. It was said of the property in the case last cited, speaking of the engines, cars, &c.: "They are as well adapted for use on one road as another, of the same width or gauge as the road for which they were built or on which they are in use; and partly worn stock of this kind is frequently sold from roads on which it has been used, for the purpose of replacing it by new and improved machinery." And it was further said, "that the engines, cars and rolling stock on railroads are, in their nature, no more peculiarly adapted, nor in point of fact confined to any particular establishment or road, than farming implements or mechanical tools are to particular farms or workshops." While the argument of the court, in this case, seems to be unanswerable against the application of the principle of fix tures to the rolling stock of railroads, the principle is not questioned, but confirmed. In a case in the court of appeals in 1854, Bishop v. Bishop, 11 N. Y. 123, poles, used in the cultivation of hops, which had been taken down and were piled in the yard with the intention of being replaced in the season of hop-raising, were decided to be a part of the real estate. Physical annexation cannot be said to have any bearing as the criterion in such a case. It would not change the character of hop poles in that respect. They would be none the less fixtures, whether commonly used by thrusting one end into the ground, or by placing them horizontally, without being fastened to the earth. As before remarked, there are cases where chattels become fixtures simply by reason of physical annexation. The case of Fryatt v. The Sullivan Company, 5 Hill, 116, S. C., in court of errors, 7 Hill, 529, is an example of the annexation of chattels to real property, so that they cannot be removed. It was a case of the wrongful conversion of a steam engine and two boilers, by so annexing them to the premises that they could not be removed without destroying the building in which they were placed. The wrong doer, after making the annexation, sold the premises to which he had wrongfully annexed the chattels, and the owner of the chattels sued the purchaser of the premises in trover. It was decided that he could not recover; that his remedy was against the wrong doer. And in the New York common pleas, in Main v. Schwaswaelder, 4 E. D. Smith, 273, it was decided that a furnace, placed in a house so that it could not be removed without disturbing the brick work of the house adjoining the furnace, and without, probably, causing a portion of the ceiling to fall, is a fixture, and passes with the realty to a purchaser. But care should be taken not to confound that class of cases with those which rest upon different principles. The distinction was very clearly stated between the different classes of chattels in Vanderpoel v. Van Allen, 10 Barb. 163, where certain machinery in a cotton mill was held to be personal property, and where the general principles of the law of fixtures were treated of as follows: "Connection or disconnection, union or separation, seemed to be the essence of the ancient rule; yet to insist upon it in its literal sense, will not free the subject from its real difficulties. There are certain things upon agricultural land, of which rail fences may be given as an example, resting upon its surface, and in no other way attached to it, light, movable, and actually moved about from place to place, and from time to time, to suit the convenience of the occupant, which the law and the universal sense of mankind regard as fixtures. While there are certain other things attached to the interior walls of a dwelling house, by nails, screws and iron straps, of which mirrors and paintings may be given as examples, which are in like manner regarded as chattels. In respect to structures and machines used in the business of trade and manufacturing, there is a wide and manifest distinction between ponderous articles purposely fitted and adapted to the places where they are used, and unfitted and unadapted to all others, of which water wheels, mill gearing, shafts, carriage ways for saw mills, steam boilers and engines, may be given as examples; and those lighter, more portable and wonderful creations of human ingenuity and skill, of which power looms, carding, spinning and pin machines may be cited as examples, which stand like a piece of furniture upon a floor, are moved by any kind of motive power, which may be displaced and repaired and replaced, without interruption to the business or hindrance to the other machinery, and which have no other connection with the freehold but that formed by the leather band which puts them in motion." The books contain numerous cases where chattels have been decided to be fixtures, merely because they were so attached to the buildings or premises that they could not be removed without material injury to the building or premises. Stills, put up for distillery and encased in brick and mortar, were held to be fixtures in North Carolina.-(Byan v. Lawrence, 5 Jones Law R. 337.) And the same thing was decided in the same case in regard to a large copper kettle, put up for cooking food for hogs, and encased in brick and mortar work. The case of Martin v. Roe, 40 Eng. Law & Eq. Rep. 68, where hot-houses were held to be personal property, rests upon peculiar grounds. A rector had erected in the garden belonging to a rectory-house, two hot-houses. After his death, his executors removed the frames and glass-work, doing no damage beyond that necessarily done to the mortar in the removal; but the succeeding rector took possession of them under a claim of right, and the executors brought an action to recover their value. It was decided that they were personal property, and belonged to the executors. The relations of the successive incumbents of a rectoryhouse, and the peculiar manner in which such property is held, seem to have been regarded as controlling circumstances in the case. It is said: "For the duty of a present and the right of a succeeding incumbent as such are correlative; any matter of needless expense, or luxury, or ornament in which the present incumbent, to gratify his own taste, has indulged himself (blamably or not is immaterial), he is not only not bound, but he ought not, to transmit to his successor. If the successor may recover damages from the executors, because such things have been removed by their testator, there can be no doubt he in his turn must maintain them, and what he must maintain he must also restore and rebuild when decayed, by a useless burden and an indefinite, it may be ruinous, expense." And the case was further distinguished as follows: "It may be worth observing that there is this distinction between an incumbent and an ordinary tenant for life; that the former has at no time any reversioner with any present interests or rights, whereas, when the latter annexes anything to the freehold, or in any way meddles with it, he annexes to, or meddles with, that in which some other person or persons has or have at the moment an existing interest, which may be increased or decreased in |