RELATIONS BETWEEN LANDLORDS AND TENANTS 325 



entirely due to the custom of granting twenty-one-year leases, 

 and that where it was uncommon to grant leases for long periods 

 of years, agriculture remained in a backward condition. 1 



During the early years of the nineteenth century the English 

 Board of Agriculture published a series of surveys which set 

 forth the conditions of agriculture in every county of the king- 

 dom. This material, supplemented by the other agricultural 

 writings of the time, makes it possible to present, in considerable 

 detail, the history of the attempts to solve the tenant problem 

 in England by the introduction of long leases. 



From these surveys it appears that the greater part of the 

 tenant farmers of England one hundred years ago held their 

 farms " at will," without written agreements, or " from year 

 to year " under written agreements. In either case they might 

 be thrown out of the possession of their farms on six months' 

 notice, at the pleasure of the landlord. But while this was the 

 dominant form of land tenure throughout the greater part of 

 England, the use of long-term leases had greatly increased during 

 the latter part of the eighteenth century, and leases varying in 

 duration from three to twenty-one years were found in every 

 county. Twenty-one-year leases were much used in the eastern 

 counties, and leases running from seven to fourteen years were 

 quite common in the western and southern counties. The 

 county of Norfolk, the home of the new agriculture, was pre- 

 eminently the land of long leases. Arthur Young wrote of 

 this county : " The great improvements which for seventy 

 years past have rendered Norfolk famous for its husbandry, 

 were effected by means of twenty-one-year leases, a circum- 

 stance which very fortunately took place on the first attempt to 

 break up the heaths and warrens in the* northwestern part 

 of the county. ... In general it may be held for sound 

 doctrine in Norfolk, that an estate can neither be improved, nor 

 even held to its former state of improvement, without long 

 leases." 2 This view was held, also, by that most competent 



1 Brown, "Agricultural Survey of West Riding of Yorkshire," p. 30; also, Arthur 

 Young, "Survey of Norfolk," p. 47. 



2 "Survey," p. 47. 



