AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



husbandry to his own, the land, the landlord, and 

 the kingdom's suffering." 



For more than a century the rural economists 

 of England have been trying to solve this problem. 

 Hence it is in England that the tenant problem 

 can best be studied in the light of history. 



Prior to the introduction of the new agriculture, 

 which movement became important during the 

 latter half of the Eighteenth Century, the tenant 

 farmers of England usually held their lands "at 

 will," without any written agreements. Under 

 this tenure, the common law and the customs of 

 the estates formed the only tie between owners 

 and tenants, and either party could bring the 

 tenancy to a close, by giving six months' notice to 

 the other. 1 Towards the close of the Eighteenth 

 Century, it became a common custom, where land 

 was held from year to year, to draw up legal 

 agreements, by which the tenants bound them- 

 selves "to the fulfillment of certain clauses and 

 conditions." 2 But the most significant move- 

 ment of this period was that in favor of leases for 

 a term of years. The rural economists of that 

 time were quite generally of the opinion that long 

 leases were necessary wherever the farmers were 

 expected to make investments in or upon the land, 

 such as require several years to yield their full 



1 Loudon, Encyclopedia of Agriculture, p. 764 ; also, W. 

 Marshall, Landed Estates, 1806, p. 378. 



2 H. E. Strickland, Agricultural Survey of the East Rid- 

 ing of Yorkshire. 



288 



