AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



who should attentively consider the whole system 

 of conduct pursued by landed proprietors, and 

 the ideas that in general prevail in this respect, 

 would believe that agriculture was an employment 

 which it was deemed to be a good policy to re- 

 press above all others/' 1 



John Tuke, who for many reasons favored 

 the letting of land from year to year, says in his 

 report on the North Riding of Yorkshire : "Ex- 

 perience, nevertheless, teaches us, that under some 

 landlords, especially those in straitened circum- 

 stances, .... or where considerable improve- 

 ments are to be made at the expense of the 

 tenants, it is more advisable to be under greater 

 certainty, though attended with greater rent." 2 

 The desirability of increasing the number of 

 twenty-one-year leases in the West Riding of 

 Yorkshire was stated very forcibly by Robert 

 Brown, who believed that without long-term 

 leases improvements could not be made. 3 In 

 Derbyshire improvements were thought to be 

 much retarded because the tenants lacked the se- 

 curity of long term leases. 4 In Lincolnshire, 

 where leases for a term of years were very rare, 

 it was generally believed that, while improve- 

 ments had been carried forward fairly well, long- 

 term leases would result in much greater improve- 



1 Agriculture, Vol. 3, p. 92. 



8 Survey, p. 55. 



8 Ibid., p. 30. 



'Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 638. 



292 



