668 ON THE PROFITS OF AGRICULTURE 



occurred which made it necessary to lease the whole stock on 

 the farm, with the exception in some cases of sheep. As we 

 have seen, the lord frequently retained his sheep after he had 

 ceased to cultivate his arable land, at his own charges and with 

 his own capital. 



Nor was it strange that the custom of leasing stock as well 

 as land should have had but a brief existence, and that it was 

 not stereotyped in England as it has been in France, in Italy, 

 and in some parts of Spain. The arrangement in the first 

 place was never of a permanent character, but generally for 

 very short periods, as for five or seven years. 1 cannot profess 

 to account exactly for this practice of very short leases. I have 

 already stated that the landlord always repaired his buildings, 

 even when they were let for long terms, and therefore there was 

 no improvement of any permanent kind effected by the tenant 

 which needed the security of a long term before it could be 

 ventured on. Again, it is probable that the lords looked on the 

 high prices of labour as susceptible of reduction by the various 

 statutes enacted in Parliament, and that therefore the excessive 

 cost of labour would hereafter cease. And though they expe- 

 rienced a still greater rise in the cost of materials, they might 

 very naturally have hoped that there would be a speedy reaction 

 from general dearness, that prices would return to their old 

 levels, and that they might hereafter resume the practice 

 which, under the immediate pressure of greatly increased cost, 

 they had been constrained for a time at least to abandon. 

 Some of the lords actually struggled on with the bailiff system, 

 and though they could not recover the low rates which prevailed 

 in the first half of the fourteenth century, they certainly did 

 find, in some materials at least, a decline of prices in the 

 last twenty years of the period before me. 



Still, if the condition of the mass of the people had been 

 stationary, or not progressive to any great extent, it might have 

 occurred that the double lease of land and stock would have had 

 a longer endurance, and the custom have held for a considerable 

 time, simply because the farmer was unable to accumulate suffi- 



