Stephen Johnson Field

“ The doctrine established by courts of equity, looking through the form to the real character of the transaction, that a mortgage is a mere security for a debt, and creates only a lien or incumbrance, and that the equity of redemption is the real and beneficial estate in the land, and may be sold and conveyed in any of the ordinary modes of transfer, subject only to the lien of the mortgage, has to a great extent, 'by a gradual and almost insensible progress,' as Kent observes, been adopted by the courts of law. ”

“ The timber growing upon the land mortgaged constituted a portion of the realty. It was embraced in the pledge of the land as security. As the assignees of the mortgage held the land, so they held the timber upon it both before and after it was cut, as a portion of their security. They could not sell it, any more than they could pass, by their conveyance, the fee of the land. ”

“ A mortgage is in form a conveyance, vesting in the mortgagee upon its execution a conditional estate, which becomes absolute upon breach of the condition. At law it was originally held to carry with it all the rights and incidents of ownership. The right of the mortgagee to be treated as owner of the mortgaged premises could only be defeated upon the performance of the conditions annexed by the day designated. ”