Book IV. SPECIES OF TENANCY. 699 



little or no improvement since, while the southern counties of Scotland have uniformly 

 advanced ; and at present exhibit very generally, a happy contrast to their condition in 

 the middle of the last century. 



4319. In respect to farmers themselves, it cannot be necessary to point out the 

 advantages of leases. It may be true, that, under the security of the honor of an English 

 landlord, tenants at will have been continued in possession from generation to generation, 

 and acquired wealth which he has never, like the landholders of some other countries, attempt- 

 ed to wrest from them. But there are few individuals in any rank of life, who continue for 

 a length of time to sacrifice their just claims on the altar of pure generosity. Something 

 is almost always expected in return. A portion of revenue in this case is exchanged for 

 power, and that power is displayed not only in the habitual degradation of the tenantry, but 

 in the control over them, which the landlord never fails to exert at the election of mem- 

 bers of parliament, and on all other political emergencies. No prudent man will ever 

 invest his fortune in the improvement of another person's property, unless, from the 

 length of his lease, he has a reasonable prospect of being reimbursed with profit ; and 

 tlie servility which holding at will necessarily exacts, is altogether incompatible with that 

 t^irit of enterprise which belongs to an enlightened and independent mind. 



4320. Every measure which has a tendency to fetter the productive powers of the soily 

 must deeply affect the public at large, as well as depress one of the largest and most 

 valuable classes. It is clearly their interest, that corn and other provisions should be 

 supplied in abundance, and the people of England may justly complain of the want of 

 leases, as one of the principal causes which checks the improvement of their own 

 territory. 



4321. JFhat ought to be the term of a lease, can only be determined by a reference to 

 the circumstances of each particular case. Lands naturally rich, or such as have already 

 been brought to a high degree of fertility, requiring no great investment of capital, and 

 returning all or nearly all the necessary outlay within the year, may be advantage- 

 ously held upon short leases, such as perhaps give time for two, or at most three, 

 of the rotations or courses of crops to which the quality of the soil is best adapted. 

 The practice of England in this respect is extremely various, almost every term, from 

 twenty years downwards, being found in different parts of it. In Scotland, by far the 

 most common period is nineteen years, to which it was formerly the practice, in some 

 places, to add the life of the tenant. In that country, even when it is thought expedient 

 to agree for a much longer term, this is still expressed in periods of nineteen years, a sort 

 of mysterious cycle, which seems to be no less a favorite with the courts of law, than 

 with landholders and farmers. Yet this term is somewhat inconvenient, as it can never 

 correspond with any number of the recognised rotations of arable land. 



4322. A lease for twenty years, it has been maintained by several writers, is not sufficient 

 to reimburse a tenant for any considerable improvements, and landholders have often 

 been urged to agree to a much longer term, which, it i alleged, would be not less for their 

 own interest than for that of the tenant. This is a question which our limits do not 

 permit us to discuss, but, after viewing it in different lights, assisted by the experience of 

 long leases in different parts of Scotland, we cannot help expressing some doubts of their 

 utility, even in so far only as regards the parties themselves ; and we are decidedly of 

 opinon, that a greater produce will be brougiit to market, from any given extent of 

 land held on successive leases of twenty years, for half a century, than if held on one 

 lease of that duration, whether the term be specified or indefinite, as is the case of a lease 

 for life. As a general mode of tenure, leases for lives seem to us particularly objection- 

 able. 



4323. The great advantages of a lease are so well known in Scotland, that one of her 

 best agricultural writers, himself a landed proprietor, has suggested a method of confer- 

 ring on it the character of perpetuity, to such an extent as, he thinks, wo.uld give ample 

 security to the tenant for every profitable improvement, without preventing the landlord 

 from resuming possession upon equitable terms, at the expiration of every specified 

 period. But the author of this plan (Lord Kaimes), in his ardent wishes for the advance- 

 ment of agriculture, at that time in a very backward state in his native country, seems 

 to have overlooked the diflHculties that stood in the way of its adoption ; and the great 

 advance in the price of produce, and consequently in the rate of rents, since his lordship 

 wrote, have long since put an end to the discussion which his proposal excited. For a 

 form of a lease on his plan, the reader may consult Bell's Treatise on Leases ,- and the ob- 

 jections to the plan itself are shortly stated in the supplement to the sixth edition of IVie 



Gentleman Farmer, recently published. 



4324. Long leases granted upo7i condition of receiving an advance of rent at the end of a 

 certain number (f years have been granted ; but covenants of tliis kind, meant to apply to 

 the circumstances of a distant period, carmot i)ossibly be framed in such a manner as to 

 do equal justice to both parties ; and it ought not to be concealed, that, in every case of a 

 very long lease, the chances are ratlier more unfavorable to the landholder than to the 



