Whitsunday and Martinmas are the legal terms whensoever the tenant entered.
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It is an established rule, that the legal terms of the year are Whitsunday and Martinmas, so that the defunct surviving Whitsunday, his executors have right to the half of that crop, and surviving Martinmas to the whole of it; which was said to be a just rule, on the supposition of the tenant's term of entry being Martinmas, and that therefore probably Martinmas had been the usual term of entry when the rule was established.
But where the tenant's term of entry is Whitsunday, it was said not to be so obvious, how to account for the rule; but that, nevertheless, even where the tenant's entry is at Whitsunday, it had now for more than a century been the practice to give the half of the crop to the executor of the defunct, who survived the Whitsunday, and the whole of it where he survived the Martinmas, for which the following decisions were referred to: February 21, 1635, Laird of West. Nisbet against Swintoun, No. 15. p. 16883. and July 20, 1671, Guthrie against Mackerston, No. 25. p. 15890.
On account of which established practice, it was in this case found, that the defunct having survived Martinmas, his executor had right to the whole crop, and therefore to the rent payable at the Whitsunday thereafter, by the tenant whose entry had been at Whitsunday, and who was bound to pay his rents at the Martinmas and Whitsunday following his entry.
Vide June 11, 1745, Campbells against Campbell, No. 48.
