BUYING A FARM, — OR LEASING. 17 



Or, if you decide to move to the West, get as many of these 

 advantages as you can, and trust for the rest to the fact that 

 schools, society, and markets are working their way intothe newer 

 States with great rapidity. By the time that your children are 

 grown up, it is probable that your new home will be much better 

 surrounded by all of these than would now seem possible. 



There has recently been published in London, under the 

 title of " Practice with Science," a series of essays on various 

 agricultural topics. Eighty of its four hundred pages are devoted 

 to the question of leases. There, the farmer who owns his land is 

 an exception. Here, fortunately, the leaseholder is an exception, 

 and an exception so rare that we need not devote much time to the 

 discussion of his position, — one which is generally temporary, 

 inasmuch as he almost always looks forward to the time when 

 he will be able to buy a farm of his own. 



The main thing to be said about leases is, that it is for the 

 mutual benefit of both landlord and tenant that they be made as 

 long as possible, in order that the tenant may afford to make such 

 improvements, and to pursue such a course of cultivation as his 

 advantage and the good of the farm may require ; that he be 

 allowed every possible facility for good farming, and that he be 

 restrained from any course of cultivation or any sale of crops that 

 will lessen the value of the land for future use. 



A lease for a single year at a time, and the privilege of selling 

 hay without returning manure, will usually end in the impoverish- 

 ment of the farmer, and of the farm too. 

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