Plaintiff sues for $11,100 rent on a farm lease, together with interest from due date, costs and attorneys’ fees. Trial was had before the court without a jury and judgment was rendered for plaintiff for $7,479.61, including $1,000 attorneys’ fees and for costs, but without interest. Both plaintiff and defendants have appealed.

About 7 August, 1944, plaintiff let to defendants by written lease certain lands in Kings County, near Tulare Lake. This land had in some previous years been irrigated with water from Tulare Lake.

The lease provides for a 'term of three years from 1 October, 1944, at a total rental of $33,300, payable $5,500 on 1 October and 1 June each year of the term. It provides that lessee shall pay lessor’s expenses, including attorneys’ fees, to be fixed by the court in any action to enforce payment of rent due. Other stipulations of the lease relate to farming methods, oil drilling rights, assignments, repair, indemnity, surrender and holding over, and do not directly concern this controversy.

Defendants failed to pay the stipulated rent amounting to $11,100 for the last year of the term and plaintiff sued to recover that sum, with interest and costs and attorneys’ fees.

Defendants’ answer admits the execution of the lease but avers that the rental payments were conditioned upon it being profitable for defendants to pay the rentals referred to, alleges such payments were unprofitable and that the written lease referred to in plaintiff’s complaint is only a part of the whole agreement. Then follows a statement of income and expense from the farm operations to show that said payments were actually unprofitable. Failure to payáis admitted, but defendants aver nothing is due. The allegation of the lease provision for attorneys’ fees is admitted but the necessity of bringing the action is denied.

Affirmatively, the defendants allege that 14 June, 1944, Eugene M. Berger was the agent of plaintiff; that said Berger, acting for plaintiff, agreed to the adjustment of rent “in the event it became unprofitable for the defendants to pay the rental referred to in plaintiff’s complaint”; that the lease dated 7 August, 1944, was only a part of the agreement between the parties; that payment of the rental for the last year of the term was in fact unprofitable; that defendants are entitled to an adjustment of rent; that defendants had notified plaintiff of these facts and asked adjustment prior to the action commenced.

The answer does not allege in any way that there is a mistake or imperfection of the lease alleged in the complaint nor is the validity of the lease put in dispute. No extrinsic ambiguity or illegality or fraud is alleged, It simply avers that the lease alleged in the complaint is only a part of the total agreement.

At the trial, over the objection of plaintiff, the defendants were allowed to introduce certain letters. The principal one of these was signed by Eugene M. Berger, the managing agent of plaintiff, and read in part as follows:

“ . . . June 14, 1944.

“As I told you, if during the term of your lease any conditions take place which will make it commercially unprofitable for you to continue to pay that rental, I shall be very glad to sit down and discuss with you the changed conditions, with a view of helping you out.

“Within the next several days, I shall be glad to have the lease completed for your signature.”

On the contention that this letter was a part of the lease agreement and was ambiguous, defendants were permitted to introduce a number of other letters and a large volume of parol evidence, going back several years, to explain the meaning of said quoted letter. This parol evidence included vital conversations with said negotiating agent Berger (who died shortly after execution of the lease) held prior to the signing of the lease. The one upon which greatest reliance is placed by defendants was during a long distance telephone call between Berger and E. 0. Salyer at the time the lease (already signed by plaintiff) was received through the mail by Salyer. Salyer called attention to the fact that the lease did not include a provision for adjustment, as referred to in said quoted letter, and Berger replied:

It ’also included evidence that in the year for which rent was not paid (1946-1947) Tulare Lake went dry and water from other sources came too late to make a profitable crop.

There was also admitted evidence concerning cropping customs in the area relating to the amount or share reasonably allocable to the lessor.

Section 1856 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that:

Section 1860 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides:

Section 1625 of the Civil Code provides:

The proper application of section 1860 of the Code of Civil Procedure is explained in United Iron Works v. Outer Harbor Dock & Wharf Co., 168 Cal. 81 [ 141 P. 917 ], where the court says, at page 84:

In the case of Cline v. Smith, 96 Cal.App. 697 [ 274 P. 761 ], defendant had entered into a written contract with plaintiffs’ principal. At the time the contract was submitted to defendant for his signature" defendant objected to the 60-day cancellation clause in the contract. In response to this objection plaintiffs’ principal wrote defendant a letter in which he said, in part:

Speaking of this letter, the court said :

The authorities cited by defendants, such as Thoroman v. David, 199 Cal. 386 [ 249 P. 513 ] ; Harrison v. McCormick, 89 Cal. 327 [ 26 P. 830 , 23 Am.St.Rep. 469 ]; Kohl v. Lytle Creek Water & Improvement Co., 24 Cal.App.2d 353 [ 75 P.2d 71 ], and Owsley v. Whelan Drug Co., 83 Cal.App.2d 454 [ 189 P.2d 50 ], do not support defendants’ position that this case is properly one of the exceptions to the rule against varying the terms of a written contract by parol evidence.

In Thoroman v. David, 199 Cal. 386 [ 249 P. 513 ], the court said:

In Harrison v. McCormick, 89 Cal. 327 [ 26 P. 830 , 23 Am. St.Rep. 469], the court quotes the time honored rule from Greenleaf on Evidence:

The letter, even if it be considered a part of the whole agreement, is merely a promise to negotiate. Its terminology is not ambiguous. Numerous examples of this kind of agreement are to be found in the annals of business wherein one person assumes to rely on the moral integrity of another only to discover that the other’s memory or understanding does not respond concerning the event causing dispute. The court cannot make a new agreement for the parties.

In Dillingham v. Dahlgren, 52 Cal.App. 322 [ 198 P. 832 ], the court said:

The lease of 7 August, 1944, was, on its face, full and complete and no fraud, mistake, imperfection, illegality or ambiguity was proved. We are of the opinion that the admission of parol, evidence and the letters was clearly error and should not have been permitted.

We are unable to agree with the defendants that the rule of estoppel applies in this case.

The cases of Calistoga National Bank v. Calistoga Vineyard Co., 7 Cal.App.2d 65 [ 46 P.2d 246 ]; Humboldt Sav. Bank v. McCleverty, 161 Cal. 285 [ 119 P. 82 ]; and Panno v. Russo, 82 Cal.App.2d 408 [ 186 P.2d 452 ], do not vary .this rule.

It is true that some cases of promissory estoppél and waiver appear to ameliorate or soften this rule, but we have been cited no case and we have been unable to find any case which in any way aids in the application of that doctrine to the case at bar.

The judgment is reversed and the cause is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with the views herein expressed. Bach party will bear his own costs on this appeal.

Griffin, Acting P. J., and Mussell, J., concurred. .

A petition for a rehearing was denied June 5, 1950, and defendants and appellants’ petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied July 6, 1950. Carter, J., voted for a hearing.