REAL PROPERTY. Land, and generally whatever is erected or growing upon or affix ed to land. Lanpher v. Glenn, 37 Minn. 4, 33 N. W. 10. Also rights issuing out of, an nexed to, and exercisable within or about the same. Annexations made by a stranger to the soil of another without his consent be come the property of the owner of the soil; Britton, bk. 2, ch. 2, sec. 6, p. 856; 2 Kent 334; Simpkins v. Rogers, 15 Ill. 397; Webster v. Potter, 105 Mass. 414 ; Bass v. R. Co., 82 Fed. 857, 27 C. C. A. 147, 39 L. R. A. 711. When annexations are made by the owner of the soil with the materials of another, so long as the identity of the original materials can be proved, the right of the original own er is not lost; White v. Twitchell, 25 Vt. 620, 60 Am. Dec. 294; Cochran v. Flint, 57 N. H. 514. Such property has the quality of passing on the death of the owner to the heir and not the executor. It may either be corporeal or incorporeal. See Will. Real Pr. 12.
In respect to property, real and personal correspond very nearly with immovables and movables of the civil law. By the latter "biens" is a general term for property; and these are classified into movable and im movable, and the latter are subdivided into corporeal and incorporeal. Guyot, Rdpert. Biens.
By immovables the civil law intended prop erty which could' pot be removed at all, or not without destroying the same, together with such movables as are fixed to the free hold, or have been so fixed and are intended to be again united with it, although at the time severed therefrom. Taylor, Civ. L. 475.
Real property includes also some things not strictly land or rights exercised or en gaged in reference thereto—such are offices and dignities, which are so classed because in ancient times such titles were annexed to the ownership of various lands; Wms. R. P. 8. Corodies and annuities are also some times classed as real property. Shares of stock in railway and canal companies are in England real property unless made personal ty by act of parliament. In the United States they are personalty independent of statutory enactment ; 2 Kent 340. Some in terests in lands are regarded as personal property, and are governed by the rules re lating thereto—such are terms of years of lands. Such interests are known as chattels real; 2 Bla. Com. 386.
Though the term real, as applied to prop erty, in distinction from personal, is now so familiar, it is one of a somewhat recent in troduction. While the feudal law prevailed, the terms in use in its stead were lands, ten ements, or hereditaments. These acquired the epithet of real from the nature of the remedy applied by law for the recovery of them, as distinguished from that provided in case of injuries, contracts broken, and the like. In the one cake the claimant or de mandant recovered the real thing sued for, —the land itself,—while, ordinarily, in the other he could only recover recompense in the form of pecuniary damages.
The term, it is said, as a means of designa tion, did not come into general use until aft er the feudal system had lost its hold, nor till even as late as the commencement of the seventeenth century. One of the earliest cases in which the courts applied the distinc tive terms of real and personal to estates, without any words of explanation, is said to have been that of Wind v. Jekyl, 1 P. Wms. 575; Wms. R. P. 66.
Corporeal hereditaments comprise land and whatever is erected or growing upon or af fixed thereto, including whatever is beneath or above the surface, "usque ad orcum" as well as "usque ad ctelumi" 2 Bla. Corn. 17; Co. Litt. 4 a. Houses, trees, growing crops and other articles fixed to the soil, though usually classed as realty, may under certain circumstances and for certain purposes ac• quire the character of personalty. Thus one erect a building on the land of another with the latter's consent, it is the personal estate of the builder and may be levied or by his creditors as such; Ashmun v. Wil• liams, 8 Pick. (Mass.) 402; Merchants' Bk. v. Stanton, 55 Minn. 211, 56 N. W. 821 43 Am. St. Rep. 491; see Richards v. Eleva• tor Co., 159 U. S. 483, 16 Sup. Ct. 53, 40 L Ed. 225; but if he fail to remove it within a reasonable time after being ejected from the land, it becomes a part of the realty; Tur• ner v. Kennedy, 57 Minn. 104, 58 N. W. If it is sold to the owner of the soil, it be comes real property ; Oliver v. Brown, 80 542, 15 Atl. 599. So if a nurseryman plant trees upon land leased for the purpose of growing them for the market, the trees are deemed personalty; Miller v. Baker, 1 Mete (Mass.) 27; 4 Taunt. 316. So where the owner of land sells growing trees (not in a nursery to be cut by the vendee), they will be deemed to pass as personalty where the contract gives no right to the vendee to al low them to remain upon the land; Claflin v. Carpenter, 4 Mete. (Mass.) 580, 38 Am. Dec 381; 9 B. & C. 561. But where there is an understanding, express or implied, that the trees may remain upon the land and be cut at the pleasure of the vendee, then the prop erty in the trees is deemed real; Clap v. Draper, 4 Mass. 266, 3 Am. Dec. 215; Olm stead v. Niles, 7 N. H. 522. So crops, while growing, planted by the owner of the land, are a part of the real estate ; but if sold by him when fit for harvesting, they become personalty; 5 B. & C. 829; and a sale of such crops, though not fit for harvest, has been held good as personalty; Craddock v. Rid dlesbarger, 2 Dana (Ky.) 206; Stambaugh v. Yeates, 2 Rawle (Pa.) 161. See EMBLE DIENTS ; MINES AND MINING.