Roberts v. Atlantic Oil Producing Co.

DENISON, Circuit Judge.

The customary form of oil lease, long in use in the older oil territory, was generally adopted in Kentucky 'when the development of its oil regions began. A typical form of this lease grants, for a period of ten years, the right to drill for oil and gas for a share of what is found, and provides that the lessee shall complete the first well within one year or pay an annual rental of ten cents per acre until the well is drilled. It was found that a large territory would be tied up by leases of this kind, which the lessees kept alive by paying the agreed rental, but upon…