The Mis77ianage7nent of Landed Property. 369 



proper rotation. Tlie Board had particularly solicited informa- 

 tion upon these two points, and it would almost seem probable 

 that upon the brains of Sinclair, Young or McCall some concep- 

 tion of an Agricultural Holdings Act was beginning to dawn. 

 At any rate, though nothing came of them for nearly a 

 century, it is interesting to examine the particulars thus placed 

 at the State's disposal. 



Leases were by no means general over England at this 

 period. Thus in Cumberland most farms were held by verbal 

 contracts for seven years, which were for all practical purposes 

 little better than no agreements at all. In the "West Eiding 

 of Yorkshire a greater part of the land was set without leases 

 the farmers being yearly occupiers, removable on six months' 

 notice. In East Anglia leases were by no means universal 

 though strongly advocated. In Northamptonshire and Bed- 

 fordshire the majority of the farmers were tenants-at-will • in 

 Derbyshire and Leicestershire there were very few leaseholders 

 and they decreasing daily ; and in Berkshire we read of a 

 rooted dislike on the side of the landlord to anything of the 

 kind. In Durham and Buckinghamshire there was a system 

 of short leases, but in the greater part of the country, as for 

 example, in Northumberland, Essex, Herts, Hants, Wilts 

 Somerset, etc., leases lasting for three years, or some multiple 

 of three years, were in vogue. Usually the period was twenty- 

 one years, terminable at every seven, and renewable by the 

 tenant on the payment of a fine. The truth is that every 

 lease was tainted with the influence of obsolete feudal 

 tenures. The ver}^ fact that its term was some multiple of 

 three denotes that it originated under the trinity system of 

 husbandry. Clauses were common enough referring to the 

 tenants' attendance at court and to the grinding of corn, etc., 

 at the landlord's mill. Boon service was still required in 

 addition to the money rent. In Scotland the delivery of grain 

 or " victual," and the supply of carts and horses required from 

 the tenants under the heading "prestations," were so excessive 

 as to interfere with good husbandry. Indeed, in many cases 

 they were advisedly rendered impossible to perform, so that 

 they might constitute a power on the part of the landlord, by 



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