Bava Batra 71: Selling and Gifting both Stringently and Generously; Accessing Trees

The rabbis sum up our past debates:  The Mishna teaches that if one sells a field, it does not include the pit, the winery or the dovecote.  It may or may not be required to purchase a path to access them.  Perhaps selling to a Levi does not necessitate purchasing a path.  Perhaps buying a path is necessary for the seller, but not to the person who gives these as gifts.  And perhaps brothers who inherit together also acquire these additions to the field.  And if a person has a chazaka on a deceased convert's field acquires all of these additions - unless the convert has heirs.  Grafted carob and sycamore stumps are acquired differently from other plants. 

The Gemara asks why a sale is different from a gift.  Was the seller less explicit than the gift-giver?  After all, gifting is a generous act, while selling is an act that assumes stinginess.  In discussing this point, the rabbis consider someone who says that a house can fit one hundred barrels when the house can actually fit 120 barrels.  While the rabbis use this to describe a real estate transaction, we learn of a novel measuring system.

The rabbis continue to discuss halacha regarding the sale and retention of trees when selling a field.  After discussing the requirement to buy trees separately from a field, the rabbis note that trees do weaken and dry up, at which point they could be removed.  They are aware that trees are nurtured by the surrounding land.  If that land is consecrated, then one cannot benefit their trees by using the nutrients of the land.  Perhaps this suggests that sellers sell generously, as well.  Or perhaps one does keep a path to access his pit, and so we do not need to argue that one must keep land for one's trees. The rabbis end our daf with the suggestion that if trees fall, one may even plant new trees.