AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



that, where improvements were to be made, a 

 lease for a term of years was necessary. 1 John 

 Priest, the author of the Buckinghamshire Sur- 

 vey, made a plea for long leases, especially where 

 improvements were to be made. 2 In Cambridge- 

 shire, where most of the farms were held on yearly 

 tenures the lack of certainty of tenure was much 

 felt. 3 In general the tendency was for the tenant 

 farmers who held their farms from year to year, 

 to adhere to the old customs and to attempt no 

 new improvements ; for the saying : 



He that havocs may sit, 

 He that improves must flit, 



expressed a common belief among the tenant 

 farmers of that day who held their land from 

 year to year. 4 The farmers and the rural econo- 

 mists of the time were quite generally agreed that 

 the adoption of long-term leases throughout the 

 land was essential to the introduction of the de- 

 sired improvements in agriculture. 5 



The long-term lease of one hundred years ago 

 reached its highest degree of perfection in the 

 county of Norfolk. 6 The two main objects to be 

 secured by the covenants of the lease were : first, 

 to guarantee to the tenant the continued posses- 



1 Survey, p. 38. 



2 Ibid., p. 83. 

 8 Ibid., p. 38. 



* R. E. Prothero, English Farming, p. 58. 

 'Hunter's Georgicol Essays, (1804), Vol. 6, Essay XXXVI. 

 'See Appendix to Chapter XIII, for Mafsba-H's description 

 of the Norfolk fease. 



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