In re the Estate of Baldwin

Belcher, C. C. John Baldwin was a farmer, and was adjudged an insolvent debtor, under the provisions of the Insolvent Act of 1880. After the order adjudging him an insolvent was entered, he petitioned the court to set aside to him certain personal property as exempt from execution, and among other things, a Gaboon seed-sower, and a “thrashing rig,” consisting of a thrashing-engine, three tanks to hold water for the engine, a thrasher, a derrick and forks, a seed-cleaner, a feeding-machine, a feeding-rack, and a cook-house.

S. P. Bailey, one of the creditors of the petitioner, filed a paper objecting to the property being set aside on the ground that it was not by law exempt from execution.

The petitioner moved that the paper be stricken out on the ground that it was not verified, and no copy of it was served on him or his attorney. The court denied the motion, and an exception was reserved to the ruling.

The matter was then heard, and from the evidence introduced, it appeared that Baldwin owned and farmed two hundred acres of land in San Joaquin County, and that he rented other lands, and usually cultivated about 320 acres in grain annually. He owned the Gaboon seed-sower, which was worth ten dollars, and another seed-sower, which was set apart to him, worth ninety dollars. The two seed-sowers were used for sowing grain broadcast, but were operated in a different manner. He and his son, who was also a farmer, owned jointly the thrashing rig. The engine was used to furnish motive-power for the thrasher, and it required sixteen men and six horses in addition to the steam-power to operate it. The thrashing rig was used to thrash the grain of its owners, but it was used principally for the purpose of thrashing grain for others.

It was also shown that the implements above described were all necessary implements to enable a farmer to profitably carry on the business of farming, and to harvest and prepare his crops for market; that it was of [76]great advantage to a farmer to own and control implements for thrashing, in whole or in part, for the reason that the grain, while in stack waiting to be thrashed for hire by thrashing implements of others, was liable to be injured by fire, early rains, shelling out, etc.; that it was not an unusual thing for several farmers to purchase, and use in common, thrashers, engines, derricks, and forks, feeding-machines, cleaners, headers, mowers, seed-sowers, plows, and other implements, for the reason that the size of their own farms, and the amount of their capital would not warrant the investment by each individual farmer in the whole of such implements; that only about one farmer in forty or fifty owned a thrashing rig, and only farmers owning tracts of land several thousand acres in extent could afford to have a complete thrashing outfit; and that most of the thrashing was hired done, and the men generally who owned thrashing outfits operated them for profit outside the regular business of farming.