22 Of Leases. 



prevent the property from being injured, during the term agreed up- 

 on ; more especially when the lease approaches to its termination, and 

 the tenant has no peculiar inducement to prosecute his improvements, 

 or to preserve the fertility of the soil. The necessity of such covenants, 

 to prevent waste, is proved by innumerable examples. The fields are 

 otherwise cropped till they can yield no more ; the farm is reduced to 

 half its value, and can only be recovered through the means of an en- 

 riching, but expensive system, either by the proprietor taking the farm 

 for some years into his own hand, or letting it for less rent than what 

 it would have produced under more careful management *. In gene- 

 ral, however, the covenants in leases are too numerous and too 

 complicated. Unnecessary restrictions are a great impediment to im- 

 provements, by precluding that spirit of enterprise and experiment, 

 which has proved the principal source of new discoveries, and of pro- 

 sperous agriculture. At the same time, where there are no stipula- 

 tions for preserving the farm in good order at the termination of the 

 lease, more especially in regard to the quantity of grass land ; the 

 extent and cultivation of the land in fallow ; the manure to be left 

 for the incoming tenant ; and the state of repair in which the houses 

 and fences ought to be given up ; the farm is left in poverty and 

 wretchedness, as has often happened to negligent landlords -|-, or those 

 who have not active and diligent land stewards, to see that the cove- 

 nants in the leaves are strictly complied with. The over-cropping of 

 the land, towards the expiration of a lease, is sometimes called, getting 

 the land in readiness for the landlord J. It has been well observed, 

 that if a tenant deteriorates the property entrusted to him, instead of 

 paying a share of the produce, he deprives the landlord and his family 

 of part of their capital. Hence tenants, like kings, as Lord Kames 

 remarks, ought to be fettered ; but not so fettered, as to bar improve- 

 ment, nor left at liberty to do mischief . 



If men were uniformly distinguished by knowledge and integrity, 

 covenants would not be necessary. It is impossible, however, for any 

 prudent landlord, to place unbounded confidence in a person, who has 

 an interest in doing him a most essential injury ; since, the more he 

 exhausts the estate, the more he may ultimately enrich himself. Such 

 attempts at exhaustion will be made, though they have often proved 

 as injurious to the tenant, as to the landlord. Hence it is advisable 

 for a landlord to insist on security for the safety, and in some cases, 

 for the improvement of his property, though, in order to obtain that 

 security, he must be content to accept of less rent than otherwise he 

 might receive. Covenants are, in fact, a species of rent ; and thougb 

 they may, for a time, diminish the annual income, yet, if judiciously 

 formed, and clearly expressed, they will prevent the deterioration of 

 an estate, and in that manner add to its permanent value. The true 

 nature of a lease, under proper covenants, is an agreement, by which the 

 proprietor accepts of a fair rent, or even rather less than the land might 



* Middlesex Report, p. 40. 



f Husbandry of Scotland, vol. i, p. 215. f Cheshire Report, p. 11J. 



Gentleman Farmer, p. 412. 



