Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/298

 282 any eaonable time that he pleaes ; and may take ufficient etovers of common right for houe-bote and cart-bote; unles retrained (which is uual) by particular covenants or exceptions. The converion of land from one pecies to another is wate. To convert wood, meadow, or pature, into arable; to turn arable, meadow, or pature into woodland; or to turn arable or woodland into meadow or pature; are all of them wate. For, as ir Edward Coke oberves, it not only changes the coure of hubandry, but the evidence of the etate; when uch a cloe, which is conveyed and decribed as pature, is found to be arable, and e convero. And the ame rule is oberved, for the ame reaon, with regard to converting one pecies of edifice into another, even though it is improved in it's value. To open the land to earch for mines of metal, coal, &c, is wate; for that is a detriment to the inheritance : but, if the pits or mines were open before, it is no wate for the tenant to continue digging them for his own ue ; for it is now become the mere annual profit of the land. Thee three are the general heads of wate, viz. in houes, in timber, and in land. Though, as was before aid, whatever tends to the detruction, or depreciating the value, of the inheritance, is conidered by the law as wate.

us next ee, who are liable to be punihed for committing wate. And by the feodal law, feuds being originally granted for life only, we find that the rule was general for all vaals or feudatories; "i vaallus feudum diipaverit, aut inigni detrimento deterius fecerit, privabitur ." But in our antient common law the rule was by no means o large; for not only he that was eied of an etate of inheritance might do as he pleaed with it, but alo wate was not punihable in any tenant, ave only in three perons; guardian in chivalry, tenant in dower, and tenant by Rh