After due notice and hearing, the court licensed and directed the administrator to sell the 160 acres at private sale for the purpose of paying the debts and legacies of deceased, and thereafter this real estate was, pursuant to the license, sold for $8,000. The sale was confirmed by the court. In December, 1911, the administrator filed his final account and petition for the settlement thereof, representing that he had paid the debts of deceased, including a $1,500 mortgage on the real estate, and had in his hands for distribution under the terms of the will $6,378.62, being part of the proceeds of the sale of said real estate. The court distributed and assigned the sum of $3,670.19, the residue, to the legatees named in the will. The share of James H. Vallely was the sum of $423.49. Plaintiff demanded of the administrator the sum so assigned to James H. Vallely. The administrator refused to pay the same to plaintiff, and this action was brought to recover it. The case was tried to the court without a jury, and the decision was that plaintiff take nothing by the action. Plaintiff moved to amend the conclusions of law so as to find that he was entitled to recover, or if that was denied, for an order granting a new trial. The motion was denied, and plaintiff appealed from the order. The findings of fact are not challenged. In addition to the facts stated above, the court found that at the time the will was made, the real estate was worth $35 per acre, subject to a $1,500 mortgage, and that the personal property then owned by the testator was worth $800. At the time of the testator's death, the 160 acres he then owned was worth $35 per acre, or $5,600, still subject to the mortgage, and his personal property was worth $300. The aggregate amount of the bequests to his children was $5,200. These figures have a bearing upon the question of the intent of the testator in making his rather peculiar and unusual will. It is noteworthy that the amount of his bequests is far in excess of the value of his personal property at the time the will was made, as found by the trial. court, and is only slightly under the total net value of all the real and personal property then owned by the testator. Plaintiff's claim that he is entitled to recover of the administrator the amount of the bequest to James H. Vallely is based first upon. the contention that under the will, or under the statute, James H. acquired a reversionary interest in his father's real estate that could be seized and sold on execution. The will contains no residuary clause, and no express direction or power to sell the remainder after the termination of the life estate. If the testator died intestate as to this remainder, the land on the death of the life tenant would go in equal shares to his children, and James H. Vallely would have an interest in the real estate that might be seized and sold on execution against him. And if plaintiff acquired such interest by purchasing at the execution sale, he would be entitled to James H. Vallely's share in the proceeds of the sale by the administrator. Ness v. Davidson, 49 Minn. 469, 52 N. W. 46; Kolars v. Brown, 108 Minn. 60, 121 N. W. 229, 133 Am. Rep. 410. But if there was an equitable conversion by the testator of the real estate into personalty so that the remainder must be regarded as personalty at the date of the testator's death, James H. Vallely never had an interest in the real estate described in the will, and the levy and attempted sale amounted to nothing. The case hinges therefore on the question whether there was an equitable conversion of the real estate into personal property at the date of the death of the testator. The doctrine of equitable conversion has been applied in a multitude of cases, but not frequently in Minnesota. There is no doubt that an express direction by the testator to sell real estate and devote the proceeds to the payment of bequests or to other purposes amounts to an equitable conversion of the real estate into personalty. And where the time at which the land is directed to be sold is indefinite, it is universally held that the conversion takes place, not when the sale actually takes place, but when the will goes into effect, on the death of the testator. The decisive questions in the case at bar are these: (1) In the absence of any express direction to sell the real estate to pay the bequests, does it clearly appear that it must have been the intention of the testator that his real estate be sold, and is this equivalent to an express direction? (2) In view of the fact that the sale could only take place after the termination of the widow's life estate, is the remainder converted into personal property as of the date of the testator's death? 1. The will contains no direction to the executor to sell the real estate, and no express power to do so. It gives a life estate to the testator's wife, "and after her death and within two years thereafter," gives to each of the testator's children a specific sum of money. These bequests aggregate $5,200, a sum approximately equal to the value of the testator's entire estate, real and personal. His personal property was worth $800 at the time the will was made, and $300 at the time of his death. He had debts greatly in excess of the entire value of his personal property, and he gave this personalty to his wife. It is plainly certain that the testator must have intended that the bequests be paid out of the proceeds of a sale of the real estate, for they could be paid in no other way. It would seem clear that the intent of Hugh Vallely was that his executor should sell the real estate after the death of his widow, "and within two years thereafter," and distribute the proceeds of sale as directed. We thus have a direction to sell, not express, but implied. Is such an implied direction equivalent to an express direction in that it works an equitable conversion? The general rule is that "In order to work a conversion while the property remains unchanged in form, there must be a clear and imperative direction to convert it. There must be an expression in some form of an absolute intention that the land shall be sold and turned into money." 9 Cyc. 831, and cases cited in note 31. This idea is expressed strongly in Anewalt's Appeal, 42 Pa. St. 414, where the court said: "To establish a conversion, the will must direct it absolutely or out and out, irrespective of all contingencies. The direction to convert must be positive and explicit, and the will, if it be by will, or the deed, if it be by contract, must decisively fix upon the land the quality of money. It must be an imperative direction to sell." But the inquiry is always as to the intention of the testator. It is not so much the words that he employs, as it is his intention as derived from the entire instrument. The whole theory of conversion rests upon the intention of the testator. That is the great guide in determining whether there has been an equitable conversion of realty into personalty. Orrick v. Boehm, 49 Md. 72. There have been many cases where there was no express direction to sell, but where it was apparent from the general provisions of the will that the testator intended the real estate to be sold. In these cases it has been universally held that a direction would be implied, and an equitable conversion worked. 9 Cyc. 832, and cases cited. In the opinion of Chief Justice Ryan in the celebrated case of Dodge v. Williams, 46 Wis. 70, 1 N. W. 92, 50 N. W. 1103, the great jurist stated the rule thus: "When a will contains a power of sale, not mandatory in terms, but it is apparent from the general scope and tenor of the will, that the testator intended all his realty to be sold, the power of sale will be held imperative, and the doctrine of equitable conversion applied." In Harrington v. Pier, 105 Wis. 485, 82 N. W. 345, 50 L.R.A. 307, 76 Am. Rep. 924, and in Becker v. Chester, 115 Wis. 90, 91 N. W. 87, 650, the rule stated in Dodge v. Williams is added to in the way of indicating the necessary degree of certainty with which the intention of the testator should be manifested in his will, in order to make an implied direction to convert. In the Harrington case, it was said that when the provisions of the will cannot be carried out without converting the realty into personalty, and the conditions are such that the testator must have contemplated that such conversion would take place to that end, a direction would be implied. In Becker v. Chester, the court reviews its former decisions and deduces the following rule: "When the execution of the scheme of the testator would be impossible or attended with such difficulties that it would be unreasonable to suppose that its execution would be contemplated by him, without the conversion of his real estate into personal property, a direction of such conversion will be deemed imperatively expressed in the will by necessary implication, to the same effect as if expressed in words." In each of the three Wisconsin cases the will contained a power of sale, though not an express direction. This was the situation in most of the cases cited in the note referred to. But the direction to sell is not implied from the power, but rather from the fact that the execution of the scheme of the testator is impossible without a conversion. Giving a power of sale does not amount to a direction that there be a sale, nor does it have any bearing on the question of the testator's intention to direct by implication a conversion of real estate into personalty. It would seem, therefore, that the absence of an express power of sale is immaterial, providing there is a clear necessity of a conversion of the realty into personalty in order to accomplish the purposes expressed in the will. And the authorities amply support this statement. 9 Cyc. 833, and cases cited in note. In many of these cases there was no express power of sale, as well as no direction in words, but in each the doctrine so well stated in the Wisconsin cases above referred to was applied, though expressed in different words. Clarke v. Clarke, 46 S. C. 230, 24 S. E. 202, 57 Am. St. 675; Chick v. Ives, 2 Neb. (Unoff.) 879, 90 N. W. 751, and Davenport v. Kirkland, 156 Ill. 169, 40 N. E. 304, are cases in which the will gave no power of sale, and others are cited in the note referred to. We have been able to discover no case in which the doctrine of equitable conversion has not been applied, where it clearly appeared from the will that the bequests of the testator would fail unless the real estate was sold. It appears beyond doubt in the case at bar that the bequests of the testator to his children could not be carried out, unless his real estate was sold to create a fund from which to pay them. Indeed, if we hold there was no implied direction to sell his real estate after the death of his wife, the testator died intestate as to such real estate, except as to the life estate devised to the widow. Plainly it was not the intention of Hugh Vallely to die intestate as to any part of his property, and a decision that he did would be to defeat his plan of distributing his estate. Such a decision is to be avoided, unless it is impossible to carry out the intention of the testator by any reasonable construction of the provisions of the will. The doctrine of equitable conversion makes it easy to distribute the property according to the testator's scheme, while without that doctrine it is impossible to do so. The will, construed as a whole, unmistakably shows the intent of the testator that his executor should, after his wife's death, sell the real estate, and pay the bequests out of the proceeds of such sale. There was therefore an equitable conversion of the realty into personalty. 2. Did this conversion take place on the death of the testator, so |