Book V. VALUING RENTS AND TILLAGES. 541 



on the real value of land. This, indeed, often tends to the ruin of farmers, by obliging 

 them to give higher rents than the land can bear ; but the same thing takes place in every 

 other trade or profession. 



3334. The amount of the rent of lands is commonly determined in money alone; but 

 owing to the fluctuations in the value of this commodity, rents are in some places made 

 payable partly in money, and partly in com (or beef or wool in some cases), or in money, 

 and the money value of a certain quantity of produce per acre. In some cases the money 

 value of the produce is determined by its price in the district for the current or preceding 

 year; and in other cases by an average of the money price for the preceding three, five, 

 or seven years. This plan has, within the last seven years, been adopted in many parts 

 of Scotland, and been generally approved of, both by landlords and tenants. There is no 

 plan that will in every year be perfectly equitable ; and for this reason many consider the 

 money rent as on the whole the simplest and best, as it certainly is that which occasions 

 least trouble to all parties. 



3335. The valuation of leases well deserves the study of the culturist, and especially 

 of the farmer, who may often wish or find an opportunity of purchasing a renewal of his 

 lease, or have occasion to dispose of an improved rent, or, in other words, sub-let his farm 

 at a profit. It is customary, in many parts of the kingdom, for landlords to compound 

 with their tenants, by accepting a sum of money paid down in place of advancing the 

 rent at the expiration of a former or a current lease. To be able to point out the exact 

 amount of the sum to be paid in any transaction of this nature, according to the annual 

 profit, and the number of years for which the lease is to be granted, must obviously be 

 particularly useful. The valuation of church leases and of college lands is of not less 

 importance, as these for the most part are let on twenty-one years' leases, renewable for 

 seven years longer at the end of every seven years ; or on leases for lives, every life being 

 renewable as it drops, for a certain sum to be determined according to the age of the life 

 to be put in, and the value of the lands. 



3336. The principle on ivhich all calculations as to the value of leases are made, is as 

 follows : — A sum being fixed on, which is considered or agreed on as the worth or profit 

 which the tenant has in the lease, and the time which the lease has to run or for which it 

 is to be renewed being agreed on, then the purchaser of the lease or of the renewal pays 

 down to the seller the present value of an annuity equal to the profit or worth, reckoning 

 money at its market price, or at what is called legal interest. Thus, should it be suitable 

 to the convenience of both parties to renew a lease of twenty-one years, of which only one 

 vear had expired, the tenant ought to pay the landlord 7s. 2d. for ever}- pound of profit 

 he has in the lease. Should it be asked how the tenant is to pay the landlord only 7s. 2d. 

 out of each pound that he had of profit in the one year that has elapsed, it is answered, 

 that the landlord had no right to receive the 7s. 2d. until the expiration of twenty years, 

 which is the number the lease has yet to run ; and that this sum of 7s. 2d. laid out at com- 

 pound interest, at 5 per cent., payable yearly, would, at the end of twenty years, amount 

 exactly to 1/. ; so that the landlord has received just the amount of what he was entitled 

 to, and no more. 



3337. Or, as the most customary period at which to renew, during the currency of a lease 

 of twenty-one years, is when seven years have elapsed, then the exact sum that ought to 

 be paid for add'ing seven years will be 21. 18s. 5d. for every 1/. of annual profit, because 

 21. 18s. 5d. laid out at compound interest, will, in twenty-one years, the length of lease 

 obtained by paying it, amount exactly to 7/., the profit that would have accrued to the 

 landlord during the seven years of renewal. 



3338. The method of determining all questions as to the renewal of leases, sale of profits 

 on sub-leases, &c. is easily learned from the common books of arithmetic ; and the value 

 of lives from tables composed from a long series of observations in different places, as at 

 London, Northampton, &c. But practical men can seldom have recourse to so tediou- 

 a method as calculating for themselves, by which, for want of daily practice, serious errors 

 might be made. They therefore have recourse to published tables on the subject, by 

 wluch the most intricate questions of this kind may be solved by the humblest individual 

 who can add and subtract, in a few minutes. The tables in most repute at present are, 

 Bailey's Tables for the Purchasing and Renewing of Leases, 1807 ; Clurkcs Enquiry into 

 the Nature and Value of Leasehold Property and Life Annuities, with many Table s, 1806 ; 

 and there is a useful pocket compendium entitled, Tables for the Purchasing of Estates, 

 Leases, Annuities, and the Renewing of Leases, by\V. Inwood, London, 1811. There is 

 a recent work on The Valuation of Rents and Tillages, by J. S. Bayldon, which is the 

 best of its kind extant. 



3339. The questions following, and others of similar importance to agriculturists, and 

 indeed to all men of property, may be answered from these tables. 



Question. Whir Eum must be paid down for a lease for twenty-one years to make five per cent, and get 

 back the princip.:. ; 

 Answer. Twelve years and three quarters' purchase of the annual rent 



