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chandize by way of bargaining, exchange, bartering, chevisance, or otherwise, in gross or [547] by retail; or seeking his or her living by buying and selling." It was evident that none of the above descriptions applied to the present case: the plaintiff in error manifestly appeared to have been farmer of a large and extensive farm, consisting of upwards of 800 acres, and to have sought his living in a manner totally different from a course of trade or commerce. That to constitute a man a trader, within the meaning of the bankrupt laws, the act of buying or selling alone is not sufficient; it is necessary he should seek his living both by buying and selling; and no case has been decided, in which the selling of any commodity of which the property was not substantially acquired by purchase in the way of trade or commerce, has ever been considered as rendering a person subject to the bankrupt laws. To apply this principle to the present case; it appeared that the brick earth of which the bricks and tiles were made, was not bought by the plaintiff in error at all; still less was it acquired by him in any shape in the way of trade or commerce. That an artificer or manufacturer in that character does not come within the description or meaning of the bankrupt laws: that character neither subjects him to, nor exempts him from their operation: all the cases of manufacturers who have been held subject to those laws, have been cases of persons buying goods and making them up into saleable commodities; who therefore substantially sought their living by buying and selling, and whose labour was only in melioration of the commodity. Most of those cases were decided in actions of slander, in which there was an express averment that such person sought his living by buying and selling; in all the others it has been apparent that he has done so; and the foundation of the decisions of the courts has been uniformly and confessedly upon that ground. That the bankrupt laws have never been extended to the case of persons vending the produce of their own lands; nor even to cases in which there has been a considerable degree of buying and selling in the course of enjoying landed property: every farmer and other person possessed of lands, buys and sells to a considerable amount, and often specifically buys and sells with profit the same individual thing; but such buying and selling is not in the course of trade and commerce. Still less will manufacturing the produce of a man's own land, in order to dispose of it to greater advantage, or purchasing, or even mixing ingredients necessary to the perfection of such produce, subject the owner of lands to the operation of those laws. No farmer was ever held liable to the bankrupt laws for selling the produce of his dairy; no proprietor of mines for raising, working, or manufacturing his coals or minerals; no owner of land for making and selling cyder of the produce of his own orchard; no proprietor of salt or allum works, for carrying on those manufactures from the produce of his own soil. In all the above cases there is necessarily much expence; in many of them several processes of manufacture, in most of them additional ingredients purchased: but where the basis of the commodity is the produce of a man's own soil, or the buying and [548] selling in the course of enjoying real property, such cases have never been considered as falling either within the letter or spirit of the bankrupt laws.

But it is said, that if a man exercises a manufacture upon the produce of his own lands, as a necessary and usual mode of reaping and enjoying that produce, and bringing it advantageously to market, he shall not be considered as a trader: if however he exercises a manufacture in an unusual and unnecessary manner, he shall be liable to the operation of the bankrupt laws.

To confine the exemption of land-owners to necessary acts of enjoyment, would be to restrain them within much narrower limits than the law has ever prescribed: a farmer who can sell his milk is not under the necessity of making cheese or butter: the proprietor of an orchard who can sell his apples, is not under a necessity of making cyder: the owner of lands which abound with minerals, may content himself with the produce of the surface: there is no greater necessity of digging for a stratum of coal, of lead, iron, or copper ore, or allum rock, than for a stratum of brick earth. Some degree of manufacture is necessary to render such commodities beneficial to mankind, but it is not more necessary in any one case than in any other, that the owner of the soil should be the manufacturer: it is as necessary that brick earth should be manufactured, as the rock of which allum is made, or the ore which is the basis of the different metals: and in point of fact, in the present case