Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/484

 that, when the mortgage was properly filed, the lien attached the moment such crop came into existence; that it required no further act upon the part of the mortgagor to give force to the lien, nor was it necessary for the mortgagee to take possession; that there was no interim during which a lien could attach that would postpone the mortgage. The defendant in this case does not dispute the legal propositions stated in the case in 6 Dak., but contends that the years in which the lien of the mortgage will attach to the crop are so indefinite and uncertain as to render the mortgage absolutely void as against third parties as to all crops except those of 1888 and 1889. We have been unable to reach that conclusion. We think the record ample to give notice to all third parties. When a chattel mortgage is once filed, no presumption arises that the debt thereby secured is paid until the mortgage is satisfied upon the record, or until the lien ceases to be of any force or effect under the provisions of § 4383, Comp. Laws, which fixes three years from date of filing as the limit of a lien under a chattel mortgage as against creditors and subsequent purchasers, unless a proper renewal affidavit has been filed. When a chattel mortgage covers all of acertainascertain [sic] line of property that the mortgagor may acquire or produce, until the debt secured by the mortgage is paid, whoever seizes the mortgaged property while the mortgage remains in force, as shown by the record, does so at his peril. In this case the grain was seized in December, 1890. The three years of life that the statute gave the mortgage had not expired; there was no satisfaction of the mortgage of record; hence defendant was bound to know that the lien had attached to and covered the crop of 1890. It could not have been more certain if the year had been named. Yet we understand respondent's position to be that, had the mortgage specifically named any number of years, by filing the proper renewal affidavits the mortgage could be kept good until the end of the term, or at least until the debt was barred by the statute of limitations. But in that case, whether the mortgage was in fact a lien upon the crop of any one year would depend upon the same fact that governs under the description as it is, and that is the fact of payment. The same uncertainty would exist in the one case