AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



upon the land during the last three years, and on 

 which, if he farms in a husbandlike manner, he 

 cannot realize all of the benefit. Thus it seems 

 that Marshall failed to solve the most permanent 

 difficulty which the tenant problem presented; 

 for the unsettled condition of the money market 

 became less important in the course of time, while 

 the problem of unexhausted improvements has 

 been of increasing importance as the years have 

 gone by. 



Various methods were devised, in different 

 parts of England, for keeping the tenants from 

 leaving the land in an exhausted condition at the 

 termination of their leases. It was the custom on 

 one estate in Shropshire to lease the land for 

 twenty-one years "certain," and for seven years 

 more at the option of the landlord. At the end 

 of the twenty-one-year period, a new contract of 

 the same kind might be entered into, if terms 

 could be agreed upon, or the tenancy might be 

 brought to a close, but the important condition 

 was that if the tenant had reduced the land to a 

 very low degree of fertility he could be forced to 

 keep the farm for seven years longer at the old 

 rent. Even if this system had succeeded in pro- 

 tecting the landlord, it failed even to recognize 

 the right of the tenant to unexhausted improve- 

 ments. 



The system which subsequent history has 

 shown to be the most effective means of keeping 

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