What may be leased. Anything corporeal or incorporeal lying in livery or in grant may be the subject-matter of a lease ; Shepp. Touchst. 268; and therefore not only lands and houses, but commons, ways, fisheries, franchises, estovers, annuities, rent charges, and all other incorporeal hereditaments, are included in the common-law rule. Among the rights springing from or connected with lands, other than the ordinary forms of real estate, which have been held to be the sub ject-matter of a tenancy, is the use of a public wharf ; Board of Com'rs of Pilots v. Clark, 33 N. Y. 251; the right to flow lands; Morrill v. Mackman, , 24 Mich. 279, 9 Am. Rep. 124 ; • right of fishing; Com. v. Weather head, 110 Mass. 175; pews in a church; Van Houten v. First Reformed Dutch Church, 17 N. J. Eq. 126 ; all timber, grass and berries found or grown upon the land for a term of years ; Freeman v. Underwood, 66 Me. 229; right of taking stone out of a quarry ; Brain erd v. Arnold, 27 Conn. 617; and the mak ing of such a lease is a contract that the lessee will work the quarry ; Watson v. O'Hern, 6 Watts (Pa.) 362; but a sealed in strument granting permission to mine on a certain lot is a license and not a lease, since it passes no estate in possession in the land, which would entitle the grantee to maintain ejectment; Boone v. Stover, 66 Mo. 430. Rent cannot properly be said ever to issue out of a chattel; Newton v. Wilson, 3 Hen. & Mun. (Va.) 470; Fay v. Holloran, 35 Barb. (N. Y.) 295; Sutliff v. Atwood, 15 Ohio St. 186 ; but goods, chattels, or live stock upon or about real property may be leased with it and a rent contracted for, to issue from the whole, upon which an action for rent in arrear may be maintained as up on such lease; Co. Litt. 57 a; Mickle v. Miles, 31 Pa. 21; Zule v. Zule, 24 Wend. (N. Y.) 76, 35 Am. Dec. 600; but in such case the chattels so delivered belong to the tenant and not to the landlord during the term and they are liable to be sold by the tenant or levied on by his creditors for the payment of his debts ; Carpenter v. Griffin, 9 Paige (N. Y.) 310, 37 Am. Dec. 396.
How made. Leases are made either by parol or by deed. The former mode embraces all cases where the parties agree either oral ly or by a writing not under seal. The tech nical words generally made use of in the written instrument are, "demise, grant, and to farm let ;" but no particular form of ex pression is required in any case to create an immediate demise ; Caswell v. Districh, 15 Wend. (N. Y.) 379; Munson v. Wray, 7 Blackf. (Ind.) 403. It was said by Shars wood, J., in Bussman v. Ganster, 72 Pa. 285, "no form of words is necessary to create a lease." An ordinary receipt' expressing the nature and terms of the tenancy may be considered a lease ; Eastman v. Perkins, 111 Mass. 30; Berrington v. Casey, 78 III. 317. It appears, therefore, that any permissive holding Is sufficient, whether contained in a memoran dum, receipt, or letters, which establish the intention of one party voluntarily to dis possess himself of the premises, for a con sideration, and of the other to assume the possession, for any given period; Shaw v. Farnsworth, 108 Mass. 357; Alcorn v. Mor gan, 77 Ind. 185 ; Johnson v. Ins. Co., 46
Conn. 92; Linsley v. Tibbals, 40 Conn. 522 (where, after a verbal conference relative to the renting of land to be used for raising strawberries, the lessee wrote to the lessor to inquire if he could have the land on the terms which he had proposed and he re ceived the reply, "Set your strawberries," it was considered sufficient, although the court remarked that it "is certainly a brief form for a lease," but under the circum stances of the case "it obviates any difficulty under the Statute of Frauds." See also cas es cited supra).
A lease signed by an agent who had no written authority to do so, and also exe cuted by the lessee, was held void within the statute of frauds ; Folsom v. Perrin, 2 Cal. 603; and such a lease cannot be effec tive as evidence until the agency is shown by evidence of equal dignity; Humphreys v. Browne, 19 La. Ann. 158.
A written agreement is generally suffici ent to create a term of years. But in Eng land, by statute, all leases that are required to be in writing must also be under seal ; 8 & 9 Viet. c. 106.
But the English courts seem to have modi fied the effect of this act by holding that a void lease may be good as an agreement for a lease ; Parker v. Taswell, 2 De G. & J. 559; Ricket v. Green [1910] 1 K. B. 253; and also that a party entering into possession paying or agreeing to pay rent under a oid lease becomes a tenant from year to year upon such terms of the void lease as are not inconsistent with the yearly tenancy; Martin v. Smith, L. R. 9 Pvch. 50. But in this country it would probably not be held anywhere, in the absence of a statute, that a seal is necessary to the validity of a lease ; Crescent City Wharf & L. Co. v. Simpson, 77 Cal. 286, 19 Pac. 426.
A letting by parol for a sum certain per month, without anything being said about a year, constitutes a lease from month to month, and not a leage from year to year ; Hollis v. Burns, 100 Pa. 206, 45 Am. Rep. 379. A lease is valid and binding on the lessee, who has signed the same and occu pied the premises under it, though it is not signed by the lessor ; Evans T. Conklin, 71 Hun 536, 24 N. Y. Supp. 1081. The writing is only evidence of the lease, though the latter term is sometimes used to designate the in strument ; Mattlage v. McGuire, 59 Misc. 28, 111 N. Y. Supp. 1083.
Statute of frauds. By the English statute of frauds of 29 Car. II. c. 3, §§ 1, 2, 3, it is declared that "all leases, estates, or terms of years, or any uncertain interest in lands, created by livery only, or by parol, •and not put in writing and signed by the party, should have the force and effect of leases or estates at will only, except leases not ex ceeding the term of three years, whereupon the rent reserved during the term shall amount to two third parts of the full im proved value of the thing demised." "And that no lease or estate, either of freehold or term of years, should be assigned, granted, or surrendered unless in writing." The principles of this statute have been adopted, with some modifications, in nearly all the states ; Taylor L. & T. §§ 28, 29 ; to the statutes of which reference must be had for the law in any particular jurisdiction.