12 thoughts on ConJlruSiive Rejln3kns, ^feBi 



according to the rules of good hufbandry. He is now depa^rtin^^ 

 from thefe rules. He is fowing too great a quantity of wheat 

 (the inftance of millabour generally quoted) and we have a righr 

 to ftcp him. War therefore begins, and a wafte of money is the 

 nfual concomitant. 



This brings me to the point I have in view, viz. "Whether 

 the nature of a general claufe will warrant fuch an interference 

 as I have mentioned. That it fruflrates the tenant's operations 

 every perion will grant, becaufe the interdict is ufually ferved at 

 a critical period of the feafon. If the tenant is guilty of bad huf- 

 bandry, I readily grant that he has contravened the claufe in 

 queftion \ but that, by merely fowing a quantity of wheat he 

 becomes guilty, I deny in. the moft exprefs terms. 



Every leafe that I have feen contains fuch a general claufe as 

 that alluded to, tliough often worded very differently. In 

 fome, the tenant is taken bound «* to manage the land in a buf- 

 bandman-like manner •," in others, *' to cultivate the ground 

 according to the rules of good hufbandry \^ in others, <* to la- 

 bour the ground fairly, according to the ufe and cuftom of the 

 country, and to keep the fame in regular breaks." It is obviousg 

 that no precife meaning can be affixed to thefe preftations^ 

 They may be compared to the paflage in Englifli criminal in- 

 dictments, where the culprit is faid to be tempted by the Devily 

 or the common phrafe in our decreet-arbitrals, the omiflion of 

 which, our beft lawyers declare, nullity fuch deeds. At the 

 beft, the general claufe can only be viewed as one of thefe obfo- 

 lete articles retained by conveyancers, after the utility of them 

 has ceafed, or perhaps they are preserved for the benefit of legal 

 people. To the tenant fuch claufes have, in many inftances, prov- 

 ed grievoufly oppreffive. To the proprietor, they are of no im- 

 portance ; for if he wifhes his land cropped in a particular man- 

 ner, he has a much furer way of getting his vvifhes fulHlled, by 

 fpecifying in the leafe tlie mode of cropping that is to be prac- 

 tifed during the currency, tfr at the conclufion thereof. 



If a tenant is taken bound to labour according to the rules of 

 good hufbandry, a quellion occurs which has not yet been folv- 

 cd. Whether is it the hulbandry pra<Stifed at the time of mak- 

 ing the agreement, or that praftiied at the time of challenge ? 

 If it is the hufbandry prac^tifed at the date of the leafe, then 

 every kind of improvement is effectually prohibited. If it is the 

 hufbandry of an after period, then the tenant is to be judged 

 by a law that was not enacSted when he fjgned his leafe. In this 

 aukward predicament are the advocates for conffru<^ive reffric- 

 tion? often placed. The more rational mode of interpreting this 

 claufe lias been, to view it as not applicable to the mode of crop- 



