464 History of the English Landed Interest. 



the management of landed estates will be found to advocate 

 the system, unless under exceptional circumstances. It may, 

 for example, occur that an impoverished farm is thrown on the 

 landlord's hands. Nitrate of soda and neglect have effectually 

 done their work of devastation. The tenant, for some years 

 heavily behind-hand with his rent, has not had the face to go 

 to the estate office and demand attention to the repairs of the 

 homestead. The landlord, for his part, has long lost heart, 

 and discontinued the process of bolstering up so desperate a 

 cause. If such a holding is to be re-let to a capable husband- 

 man, it will be necessary to expend both landlord's capital 

 on repairs of buildings, and tenant's capital on renovation of 

 the soil. In this case, therefore, fixity of tenure, such as the 

 lease alone affords, is indispensable. But in ordinary circum- 

 stances the abrogation of the powers by which the one party is 

 able to get rid of an obnoxious tenant, and the other can become 

 free from a tyrannical landlord, is a foolish policy. The lease 

 never yet succeeded in keeping an unpopular farm tenanted, 

 nor an unpopular tenant secure from annoyance. It never 

 has been a beneficial economy for the landlord, and it only was 

 such for the farmer as long as the system of tenant-right was 

 defective. It was, of course, preferable to those unwritten 

 agreements based on the var^dng customs of localities. In 

 Caird, therefore, that shrewd man of practice, we find a pro- 

 nounced foe of tenant-right, and a strong advocate of the lease. 

 He hated to see the brassplates on the doors of the appraisers, 

 and argued from their very brightness, that their owners 

 throve on the disputes between landlord and tenant. The 

 business of the land valuer, he maintained, was to promote 

 constant changes from farm to farm, and to destroy confidence 

 between owner and occupier. Custom of the country, he 

 declared, encouraged trickery and deceit, crippled the incom- 

 ing tenant, and allowed the outgoing one to prolong his 

 farming existence by means of borrowed capital. The inven- 

 tory, consisting of manures, and half-manures, rent, taxes, 

 ploaghings, harrovvings, etc., etc., required an immense amount 

 of calculation to make out, wliich was necessarily based almost 

 entirely on the evidence of the interested party. It v.'as an 



