86 THE FUTURE OF OUR ACzRICULTURE. 



occasional slumps as happen do something to explain the 

 frequent presence of decidedly indifferent farmers on decent 

 farms. Mr. Hall puts it in this way : " Landlords were 

 hard hit in the depression, and they learnt to stick to any 

 tenant who would continue to make the land earn some- 

 thing. They had no prospect of getting superior tenants ; 

 the business was not attracting new men with capital and 

 brains." Such explanation may be satisfactory for the 

 landlord ; but it does not give the Nation much of a pro- 

 spect of securing the coveted addition to its food. 



On what principle does the landlord accept his tenant, 

 and what does he do to employ his own influence in further- 

 ance of good farming, such as the Nation wants ? It is 

 his interest, of course, that the tenant should do well, so 

 as to be able to pay his rent in full and regularly, and put 

 the land in good heart. There are peculiar features about 

 land letting which do not square with those of any other 

 kind of hiring out of an object of value and which place 

 such land letting in a position all by itself. We cannot, 

 of course, conceive of any other kind of business being 

 let out as is a farm, with covenants, prohibitions, and under- 

 takings to restrain the hirer. And the letting of a house, 

 or a ship, presents far fewer points susceptible of so much 

 difference of opinion and of interest as does a farm. 

 There are features about the letting of a farm which 

 recall the ancient medietas, the modern metayage or mezza- 

 dria. The tenant hires his land at a certain rent — which, 

 as Sir J. Caird points out, does not in every instance corre- 

 spond to the real value, being often enough determined 

 simply by " custom." And often enough it is so much 

 under the real value as to act as a direct incitement to poor 

 farming. 



" One very real objection to granting security of tenure," so 

 writes Mr. Hall, " now without qualiiication is that rents are, 

 speaking generally, below their true economic level in England." 

 And again : " An indictment might be framed against landlords 

 for not insisting upon higher farming on the part of their tenants, 

 even for not raising rents to the pitch that would force men to a 

 better use of the land they occupy." And once more : " The 

 Lothian farmer has been heard to argue that the poor farming 



