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The foregoing theory is ingenious, but its practical ap- 

 plication in the case of every farm would imply a series of 

 nice calculations, the data for which could not be supplied 

 with sufficient accuracy. In balancing the account of 

 capital between landlord and tenant, there would be, aa 

 regards the former, the difficulty of ascertaining the real 

 market value of his interest, which is influenced by many 

 considerations of varying amount. In the case of the 

 tenant, there would be, in like manner 1st, the estimate 

 of his invested capital, which would depend on the rota- 

 tion he pursued ; 2nd, the value of his superintendence, 

 which would depend very much on his experience and his 

 education ; but without positive certainty on these points, 

 there could be no real accuracy in any balance sheet of 

 capital between landlord and tenant. 



In various extensive districts of the Continent of Europe, 

 there is a real and understood partnership between the 

 proprietor of the soil and the cultivator ; in this, called 

 the Metayer system, the landlord contributes not only the 

 land, but also all the stock and capital necessary for its 

 cultivation ; the farmer merely executes the labour ; and 

 the produce is equally divided between them. 



In the North of Ireland and in other districts, where 

 all the improvements in building, fencing, clearing, and 

 draining have been done by the tenant, the partnership 

 principle of valuation has been argued on stronger 

 grounds than those of analogy merely. The digest of 

 evidence taken before Her Majesty's Commissioners of 

 Inquiry into the state of the law and practice in respect 

 to the occupation of land in Ireland, states, " It is difficult 

 to deny that the effect of this system is a practical as- 

 sumption by the tenant of a joint partnership in the land ; 

 although those landlords who acquiesce in it do not 

 themselves acknowledge this broad fact, and that the 

 tendency is gradually to convert the proprietor into a mere 

 rent-charger, having an indefinite and declining annuity 

 or the lord of a copyhold." 



In all such cases, if valuations were made on the simple 



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