35. If any person has, bona fide, purchased land from another, whom he believed to be the true owner, when in fact he was not, or has, bona fide, acquired it from such person by gift or by other good title, natural reason demands that the fruits which he has gathered shall be his in return for his care and culture.
And, therefore, if the real owner afterwards appears and claims his land, he can have no actio for fruits which the possessor has consumed. But the same allowance is not made to him who has knowingly been in possession of another’s estate, and, therefore, he is compelled to restore, together with the lands, all the fruits, although they may have been consumed.
36. The usufructuary of land is not owner of the fruits until he has himself gathered them; and, therefore, if he should die while the fruits, although ripe, are yet ungathered, they do not belong to his heirs, but are the property of the owner of the soil. And nearly the same may be said of the colonus.
Property of the usufructory
37. In the fruits of animals are included their young, as well as their milk, hair and wool; and, therefore, lambs, kids, calves, colts, and young pigs immediately on their birth become, by the law of nature, the property of the usufructory, but the offspring of a female slave is not considered a fruit, but belongs to the owner of the property. For it seemed absurd that man should be reckoned as a fruit, when it is for man’s benefit that all fruits are provided by nature.
38. The usufructuary of a flock ought to replace any of the flock that may happen to die by supplying the deficiency out of the young, as also Julian was of opinion. So, too, the usufructuary ought to supply the place of dead vines or trees. For he ought to cultivate with care, and to use everything as a good father of a family would use it.
39. The Emperor Hadrian, in accordance with natural equity, allowed any treasure found by a man in his own land to belong to the finder, as also any treasure found by chance in a sacred or religious place. But treasure found without any express search, but by mere chance, in a place belonging to another, he granted half to the finder, and half to the proprietor of the soil.
Consequently, if anything is found in a place belonging to the emperor, half belongs to the finder, and half to the emperor. And hence it follows, that if a man finds anything in a place belonging to the fiscus, the public, or a city, half ought to belong to the finder, and half to the fiscus or the city.
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