- glean:
- The word glean comes from the French glaner to gather ears or grains of corn. This was formerly a general custom in England and Ireland. The poor went into the fields, and collected the straggling ears of corn after the reapers; and it was long supposed that this was their right, and that the law recognized it; but although it has been an old custom, it is now settled by a solemn judgment of the Court of Common Pleas, that a right to glean in the harvest field cannot be claimed by any person at common law. Any person may permit or prevent it on his own grounds. By the Irish Acts, 25; Henry VIII. c. 1, and 28; Henry VIII. c. 24, gleaning and leasing are so restricted as to be in fact prohibited in that part of the United Kingdom.
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