704 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



application of mercantile book-keeping to territorial property, the advantages of which 

 cannot but be as great in the one case as in the other. 



4348. In auditing estate accounts, the rent accounts are to be checked with the 

 arrears of the preceding year ; the column of rents with the rent-roll, corrected up to 

 the last term of entry in order to comprise the fresh lettings, and the columns of account 

 with the particulars ; those of allowances being signed by the respective tenants. 



4349. The monthly accounts of receipts and disbursements, as well as the annual pay- 

 ments, are to be compared with vouchers. The receipts are checked by deeds of sale, 

 contracts, and other written agreements, the awards of referees, or the estimates of 

 surveyors, the market prices of produce, &c. &c. ; the receiver, in every case, identifying 

 the person, from whom each sum was received. Each disbursement requires a direct 

 and sufficient voucher, endorsed and numbered ; with a corresponding number affixed 

 to the charge in the account ; so that they may be readily compared. 



4350. The most essential part of the office of an auditor is that of entering into the 

 merits of each receipt and payment j and considering whether the charges correspond 

 with the purposes for which they are made ; and whether the several sums received are 

 adequate to the respective matters disposed of; by these means detecting, and thence- 

 forward preventing, imposition and connivance. I'his, however, is an office which no 

 one but a proprietor, or other person who has been conversant with the transactions that 

 have taken place upon the estate, and who has a competent knowledge of rural concerns, 

 can properly perform. It may therefore be right to repeat, that if a proprietor has not 

 yet acquired a competent knowledge of his own territorial concerns, to form an adequate 

 judgment of the different entries in his manager's account, let him call in the assistance 

 of those who are conversant in rural affairs, to enable him to judge of any particular 

 parts that may seem to require it ; and not set his hand to an account which he does not 

 clearly understand ; nor authorize another to sign it, who may have less knowledge than 

 he has of its merits. 



BOOK V. 



OF THE SELECTION, HIRING, AND STOCKING OF FARMS. 



4351. Farms or lands let out to men who cultivate it as a business or profession, 

 exist in all highly civilised countries. Sometimes the farmer or tenant pays to the pro- 

 prietor or landlord a proportion of the produce, determined yearly, or as the crops 

 ripen ; and sometimes he pays a fixed quantity of produce, or labor, or money, or part 

 of each of these. In Britain, where farming, as a profession, is carried to a higher de- 

 gree of perfection than in any other country, the connection between landlord and tenant 

 is regularly defined by particular agreements and general laws ; and the latter, on en- 

 tering on a farm, engages to pay a fixed sum for its use for a certain number of years. 

 This sum is fixed according to the estimated value of the land ; but being fixed, and for 

 a certain time, it admits of no abatement in proportion to the quantity or value of the 

 produce, as in the proportional or metayer system, general in most countries (265. and 

 585. ) ; and hence the necessity of a farmer maturely considering every circumstance 

 connected with a farm before he becomes its tenant. The subjects of consideration form 

 the business of this Book, and naturally divide themselves into such as relate to the farm ; 

 to the farmer ; and to the landlord. 



Chap. I. 



Of the Circumstances of a Farm necessary to be considered by a proposed Tenant. 



4352. Whoever intend'; to become a professional, or rent-paying farmer, will, in search- 

 ing for a farm, find it necessary to attend to a great variety of considerations. Those of 

 the greatest importance may be included under climate, soil and subsoil, character of 

 surface, topographical position, extent, buildings, roads, fields, tenure, rent, and out- 

 goings. In The Code of jrlgriculture, a more valuable collection of facts as to these 

 points is brought together than in any other work, and from it, therefore, we shall select 

 the greater part of the following sections. 



