ת"ש קציעות בדרך ואפילו בצד שדה קציעות וכן תאנה הנוטה לדרך ומצא תאנים תחתיה מותרות משום גזל ופטורות מן המעשר בזיתים ובחרובים אסור
Come and hear: Cut figs [found] on the road, even if [found] beside a field [covered with] cut figs.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' I.e., beside a field on which cut figs have been spread out to dry, and it is obvious that the figs on the adjoining road belong to the same owner.
');"><sup>20</sup></span> and also figs found under a fig-tree that overhangs the road, may be appropriated [by the finder] without him being guilty of robbery, and they are free from tithing,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' They are treated as ownerless goods which need not be tithed, for although the owner may not have known of the loss, he will abandon hope when he gets to know.
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Rashi on Bava Metzia
Dried figs - Figs that are cut off with a scalpel, such that their sap flows out; and we spread them out on the field to dry.
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Tosafot on Bava Metzia
And exempt from tithes - In Tractate Peah 4:1, it is shown that it is only when he renders it ownerless before the end of the work [on the produce] that it is exempt from tithes. But if he renders it ownerless after the end of the work, when he was already obligated in tithes, there is nothing in this. And here too is it is speaking about after the end of the work, such that they have not yet dried - as it is shown in Beitzah 34b, the chapter [entitled] Hamevie - that the end of the work of figs that are ready to be spread out in the field and to be made into dried figs, is not until they are dried. And even if the finder claimed them before they dried, they are [still] exempt from tithes, as we say in Bava Kamma 28a, "One who renders his vineyard ownerless and arose early in the morning and harvested it [...] is exempt from tithes." But it is not like this concerning consecrated property (hekdesh). As if he consecrated [it] before the end of the work and it was redeemed before the end of the work, it is [still] obligated in tithes, as it is somewhat shown in the chapter [entitled] HaOmer (Kiddushin 62b).
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Rashi on Bava Metzia
And even in the side of a field of dried figs - A field in which we spread out figs to dry, as he knows that they came from them.
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Rashi on Bava Metzia
Permitted [regarding] robbery - Even though he did not know when they fell; since once he will know, he will abandon [them], the abandonment is from now - like Rava.
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Rashi on Bava Metzia
Exempt from tithes - like the law of ownerless property. As ownerless property is exempt form tithes.
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Rashi on Bava Metzia
In [the case of] olives or of carobs, it is prohibited - like Abbaye.
