58 ARTHUR YOUNG AND THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE 



from Broadway to Tetbury, and from Birdlip to Burford, 

 lay unenclosed. Farmers were poor, ignorant, spiritless : 

 holdings were small, wages low. On common fields it was 

 impossible to introduce green crops, or to profit by the 

 discoveries of Bake well. Young had some reason for the 

 conclusion that the ' Goths and Vandals of open field farmers 

 must die out before any complete change takes place.' 



In Essex and Suffolk leases for terms of years, with 

 clauses as to management, were not unknown. But even 

 landlords entertained prejudices against leases, because of 

 the supposed want of reciprocity. In 1810 Young found 

 many Oxfordshire landlords who never gave leases, because 

 ' they told the farmer when he might begin systematically 

 to exhaust the land.' Agreements, voidable on either side 

 at six months' notice, were the rule in the country. Where 

 a good understanding existed between landlord and tenant 

 leases were not indispensable. But if tenants at will lost 

 confidence, as in Yorkshire at the close of the century, 

 ' good farming ceased, for fear the fields should look green, 

 and the rent be raised.' Enterprise was impossible with- 

 out certainty of return for outlay. Tenants at will adopted 

 the routine of the district, and plodded along in the 

 beaten track trodden by their ancestors. The Berkshire 



saying — 



He that havocs may sit, 

 He that improves must flit, 



expressed the popular belief that, if the tenant improved 

 his land, he would be forced either to leave his holding or 

 pay a higher rent. Leases for lives were the usual form, 

 when the tenure was not at will or from year to year. But 

 their utility was marred by the absence of any clauses of 

 management or provision for the maintenance of buildings. 

 In Devonshire leases were, as Fitzherbert advises, for three 



