McCormick v. Farmers Grain & Milling Co.

WORKS, J.

This is an appeal by the defendants from a money judgment. On or about January 13, 1917, the respondent leased to one Beretta a certain tract of land and took from him a crop mortgage as security for the payment of the rent provided for in the lease. The instrument was recorded February 10, 1917. By its terms the mortgage covered “the following growing crops, viz., the crop of barley hay and/or grain and the crop of com to be grown now being, standing and growing upon that certain piece or parcel of land,” particularly describing the demised premises. On or about June 29, 1917, Beretta sold to the appellant Farmers Grain and Milling Company, which had1 no actual notice of the mortgage to the respondent, a crop of milo maize to be matured on the leased land, agreeing to make delivery on or about November 20, 1917. On that day he refused to deliver and the Farmers Company brought a claim and delivery action to recover the crop. Acting

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under process, the appellant sheriff took possession of the maize December 5, 1917. The respondent made a third party claim to the property, the appellant Farmers Grain and Milling Company gave bond to secure the officer against the claim, and the ■ respondent commenced the present action as upon a conversion, on April 24, 1918. Judgment was rendered in favor of the respondent for the value of the maize.

A goodly portion of the briefs of the respective parties is devoted to a discussion of the question whether a crop mortgage, in order to be effective, must describe the crop sought to be hypothecated by a mention of the year, or the season of the year, or some definite period of time, during which it is to be grown. The appellants contend that the mortgage now before us is uncertain in that it does not fix such a period of time in its description of crops, and they cite several Iowa cases, headed by

Pennington

v.

Jones,

57 Iowa, 37, [10 N. W. 274], in support of their contention. We need not pursue those cases and may concede that the fixing of a time during which a given crop is to be raised would ordinarily be a satisfactory method of so describing it as that constructive notice as to the crop intended would thereby be conveyed to the world, but we cannot go further. It is futile to assert that a crop can in no other manner be designated in a mortgage. “The description of a crop is sufficient if it be such that a prudent, disinterested person, aided and directed by such inquiries as the instrument itself suggest, is able to identify the property” (11 Corpus Juris, 468); and one of the cases cited by appellant