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Tlic Coil II fry Geiitlciuans Magazine 



lime or aught else, the benefit of which we cannot re- 

 ceive back at once." 



In such cases the right thing to do has always ap- 

 peared to me to be to raise the rents as a stimulus to 

 improvement, and to give security for the employ- 

 ment of capital, either by a lease for a given number 

 of years with liberal covenants as regards manage- 

 ment, or by providing that unexhausted improvements 

 and manures shall be fairly paid for at the termina- 

 tion of an occupancy. 



SlldRT LEASES. 



A lease, however, should not be for a shorter 

 period than fourteen years under any circumstances, 

 to give time for the repayment of capital invested 

 in cultivation ; and ought to be for nineteen or 

 twenty-one years, where there is draining required, 

 or where the reclamation of waste and hitherto unpro- 

 ductive land is to form part of the operations. 



For example, a case which came under my own 

 immediate observation may be cited. A certain farm 

 of about 200 acres, arable, and as much pasture and 

 meadow land, had been taken in hand by the owner, 

 who found that in a given year the yield of wheat on 

 one-fourth of the arable land was 26 bushels per acre. 

 And as the farm had been in his' hands for several 

 years, during which a spirited system of management 

 had been followed, this result was unsatisfactory. 

 He, however, did not despair, but continued to ex- 

 pend money freely in the application of chalk, the 

 purchase of artificial manures, and in feeding material. 

 Six years later the average yield of wheat had risen to 

 40 bushels per acre, and for the next succeeding four 

 or five years it rose to 44, with a corresponding in- 

 crease in the quantity as well as quality of the other 

 crops grown. Now, had this farm been held under a 

 lease for seven or eight years, it is quite clear no such 

 result could by any possibility have followed the sys- 

 tem pursued. There is no royal road to success, and 

 the instance cited proves, if it proves anything at all, 

 that, notwithstanding a grateful soil, a genial climate, 

 a judicious and persistent expenditure of capital, there 

 was required time to make the result commensurate 

 with the outlay. As this is no solitary instance, but a fair 

 example of many others, it may be taken as pointing 

 irresistibly to the conclusion, that to expect profitable 

 resiUts from really good farming on old arable land 

 under a short term of holding, is to expect that which 

 nature stamps an impossibility. This farm did not 

 require much draining, but had there been a prelimi- 

 nary outlay of £6 or £'] per acre in drain pipes and 

 labour, of course a much longer time would have been 

 required to bring back principal and interest to the 

 occupant. 



The value of a farm to the landlord is the value in 

 the state in which it is, not what it might be. The 

 value to the tenant is its value after he has gone to 

 the limits proposed in good thorough cultivation. 

 The rent should, therefore, be estimated at the present 

 value ; the probable return for the capital estimated 



by the maximum yield of the crops, and the period at 

 which that maximum may be reached. 



As enough has been advanced to prove the intimate 

 connexion between tenure and capital, I shall go on 

 to notice the connexion between tenure and labour. 



teni:re and labour. 



To the agricultural labourer the question of tenure 

 comes home with stern significance. He, alone, of all 

 directly connected with farming, is dependent on 

 others. By the operation of a law he is practically 

 prevented from carrying the only commodity he can 

 bring to market, to that market which may be the 

 best at the time. He is, therefore, found on farms 

 ^\•here the tenants may have changed several times in 

 his brief day, and have changed masters without any 

 change in his position. 



It -would ill comport with modern farming, were the 

 agricultural labourer to become nomadic in his habits 

 and migrate with the seasons from place to place. 

 The spirit of the age demands an amount of intelli- 

 gence, skill, and steadiness in the man, inconsistent 

 with unsettled habits and a varying home. Still, I 

 have come to the conclusion, that the total repeal of 

 the law of settlement woidd be of advantage to both 

 employer and employed. I have seen agriculture 

 languishing for the want of skill and intelligence in 

 its labour in one county, while in another there were 

 enough and to spare, but which, notwithstanding the 

 inducement of higher wages, could only be obtained 

 temporarily on account of this law. I have seen 

 something like a vestry held over the conduct of an 

 improving farmer, who had imported from a neigh- 

 bouring county some man whose skill surpasses the 

 skill of the parish, and who was valuable in the manage- 

 ment of modern agricultural machinery. I have seen 

 a valued servant die, and his widow and children cast 

 back to their parish long after its ties and associations 

 had been broken up and new ones formed elsewhere. 

 But I have not yet seen that the interests of the em- 

 ployer have been advanced by such proceedings, while 

 the labourer has materially suffered by the rigorous 

 administration of a cruel law. Look at the condition 

 of the labourer in districts where yearly tenancy 

 prevails, and where no payment for unexhausted im- 

 provements attracts capital, and you will find him at 

 zero in intelligence and skill. Here you will find but 

 scant employment in the winter, and, consequently, 

 semi-starvation, and all the attendant ills of poverty 

 and idleness prevailing. You will find, it maybe, men 

 who have not moved from their parish from their 

 birth, but you will look in vain for any other link of 

 connexion between them and their employers than 

 that they were born on the same farm. Even that link 

 may be wanting, and the labourer compelled, for want 

 of cottage accommodation, to live miles from the farm 

 in a town. 



Contrast with this the condition of things where 

 security of tenure exist to the tenant, and who is ex- 

 pending money freely, and you will find every month 



