Book I. VALUATION OF LANDED PROPERTY. 555 



as such rents are not so regularly paid, and the tenant, having no reserve of capital, is in bad seasons often 

 unable to pay any rent at all. 



3424. The spirit of improvement, or the prejudice against it, which prevails in a district of sale, is a cir- 

 cumstance of some value to a purchaser : for if the former is in a progressive state, especially if it is still 

 in the earlier stages of its progress, a rapid increase of rent may, with a degree of certainty, be expected ; 

 whereas, under the leaden influence of the latter, half a century may pass away, before the golden chariot 

 of improvement can be profitably put in motion. 



3425. In markets, more than in any other circumtances, we are to look for the existing value of lands. 

 Their influence is not confined to towns and populous places of manufacture : for in ports, and on quays, 

 whether of inlets, estuaries, rivers, or canals, markets are met half way j even by good roads, their distance 

 from the farm-yard may be said to be shortened. 



3426. In this detail of the particulars of situation, with respect to the value of landed 

 property, we perceive the attentions requisite to be employed by a valuer who is called 

 upon to act in a country that is new to him. A provincialist, or even a professional 

 valuer, who acts in a district, the existing value of whose lands he is sufficiently ac- 

 quainted with, determines, at sight and according to the best of his judgment, on their 

 respective values : for he knows, or ought to know, their current prices ; what such 

 and such lands let for in that neighbourhood ; what he and his neighbours give, or 

 would give, for lands of the same quahty and state, without adverting to the particular 

 circumstances of situation (they being given, in the established current prices which 

 have arisen out of these circumstances) ; resting his judgment solely on the intrinsic 

 quality and existing state of each field or parcel as it passes under his eye. But let 

 his skill be what it may, in a country in which he has acquired a habit of valuing 

 lands, he will, in a distant district, the current market prices of whose lands may 

 be ten, twenty, or fifty per cent, above or below those which he has been accustom etjl; 

 to put upon lands of the same intrinsic qualities and existing states, find himself at Oti,^ 

 loss, until he has learnt the current prices of the country, or has well weighed the cir-tji^ 

 cumstances of situation ; to which, in every case, he must necessarily attend, before he . 

 can determine their value under an improved practice, or venture to lay down general; ji 

 rules for their improvement. 



3427. The existing state of lands, or the manner in which they lie, at the time of sale, 

 is the next class of circumstances which influences their marketable value. 



3428. Their state with respect to enclosure is a matter of great consideration. Open lands, though wholly 

 appropriated, and lying well together, are of much less value, except for a sheep walk or a rabbit warren, 

 than the same land would be in a state of suitable enclosure. If they are disjointed and intermixed in a state 

 of common field, or common meadow, their value may be reduced one third. If the common fields or 

 meadows are what is termed Lammas land, and become common as soon as the crops are off, the depression 

 of value may be set down at one half of what they would be worth, in well fenced enclosures, and unett-i' 

 cumbered with that ancient custom. Again, the difference in value between lands which lie in a detached 

 state, and those of the same quahty that lie in a compact form, is considerable. The disadvantages of n- 

 scattered estate are similar to those of a scattered farm. Even the single point of a want of convenientoa 

 access to detached fields and parcels is, on a farm, a serious evil. And it is on the value of farms that th6' ; 

 value of an estate is to be calculated. J^i' 



3429. The state of the roads, whether public or private, within an estate, and from it to the neighbouring! < 

 markets, or places of delivery of produce, is an object of consideration to a purchaser. J^. 



3430. The state of the watercourses, or shores and ditches, within and below an estate, requires to be ex.i ' 

 amined into ; as the expense of improvement or reparation will be more or less, according to their existing oi 

 state at the time of purchase; or, perhaps, by reason of natural causes, or through the obstinacy of a-;^'i 

 neighbour, and the defectiveness of the present laws of the country in this respect, the requisite improve^ '1;: 

 ment cannot be effected at any expense. " ' 



3431. The state of drainage of lands that lie out of the way of floods or collected water requires to befi 

 taken into consideration ; for although the art of draining is now pretty well understood, it cannot \H 

 practised, on a large scale, without much cost 



3432. The state of the lands, as to tillage and manure, is entitled to more regard than is generally paid o^ 

 to it, in valuing them. But even to a purchaser, and still more to a tenant for a term, their state, iwijv 

 these respects, demands a share of attention. Lands that are in a high state of tillage and condition,'^*'" 

 so as to be able to throw out a succession of full crops, may be worth five pounds of purcha.se money >t^ 

 an acre more than those of the same properties, which are exhausted by repeated crops, and lie in a'ff? 

 useless state of foulness, from which they cannot be raised, but at a great expense of manure and 

 tillage. 



3433. The state, as to grass or arable, is better understood, and generally more attended to. Lands 

 in a state of profitable herbage, and which have lain long so, are not only valuable, as bearing a 

 high rent while they remain in that state; but after the herbage has begun to decline, will seldom fail 

 to throw out a valuable succession of corn crops. Hence, the length of time which lands, under 

 valuation, have lain in a state of herbage, especially if they have been kept in pasturage, is a matter of 

 enquiry and estimation. 



3434. Lastly, the state of farm buildings anid fences is a thing of serious consideration. Buildings, 

 yards, and enclosures, that are much let down, and gone to decay for want of timely reparation, incur a 

 very great expense to raise them again to their proper state. And, when great accuracy of valuation 

 is called for, as when the purchase value of an estate is left to reference, and when the tenants are not 

 bound, or if bound are not able, to put them in the required state, it becomes requisite to estimate the 

 expense which each farm, in that predicament, will require to put it in sufficient repair, so as to 

 bring the whole into a suitable state of occupation. And the same principle of validation holds good in 

 ordinary purchases. 



3435. Deductions, encumbrances, and outgoings, are leases, tithes, taxes, fixed payments, 

 repairs, and risks. 



3436. Leases. In considering the nature of leasehold tenures, it appears that, by a 

 long lease, the fee-simple value of an estate may be, in effect, annihilated. Even a lease 

 for lives, with a mere conventional rent, may reduce it to nearly one third of its fee- 

 simple value ; and every other kind of lease, if the rent payable be not equal to the 



