372 History of the English Landed Interest. 



when he declares in his Political Arithmetic,^ some twenty 

 years earlier, that " the improvements which have taken place 

 in England have been almost entirely owing to the custom of 

 granting leases, and that in those counties, where it is unusual 

 to grant them, agriculture continues much inferior to what it 

 is to be found where they are usual." This is fully borne out 

 by the reports to the Board, "In this county," writes Mr. 

 Nathaniel Kent, from Kent, to Sir John Sinclair in 1794, " it 

 is rather the fashion to grant leases, which in a great measure 

 accounts for the improvements that have taken place in it ; 

 most of the great estates have been made from it, for without 

 leases no marling to any extent would have been undertaken, 

 nor so much ground brought into cultivation by one-third as 

 there is now. The Holkham estate alone strongly proves this 

 assertion, as its rental has been increased in the memory of 

 man from five to upwards of twenty thousand pounds a year 

 in this county only, and is still increasing like a snowball." 



Many of the Board's correspondents, however, admit that 

 exceptional cases were possible, in which no landlord could be 

 expected to tie up a holding too long. Land close to the man- 

 sion house might some day be wanted for a home farm. Es- 

 tates might be sold and the purchaser might require immediate 

 possession, or they might be shortly falling into the hands of a 

 minor who would resent \vhat he might regard as a premature 

 disposal of his interests.^ But the principal cause of the land- 

 lord's reluctance is probably discovered in the assertion of 

 another writer, who says, " they imagined that a long lease 

 made the tenant insolent and independent." In Salop vaguely 

 worded covenants had led to much litigation, and lessors had 

 begun to exhibit an illfounded jealousy towards lessees. Mag- 

 nanimous landlords, however, ignored any such mean objection, 

 and men like the Duke of Norfolk and Mr. Coke went out of 

 their way to initiate the custom in districts where it was 

 unusual. 



' Political Arithmetic, or Observations on the Present State of Great 

 Britain, etc. London, 1774. 



^ It must be remembered that we are writing of a time when a lease 

 was not binding on the remainderman. 



