764 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



ing tenant should be refused nothing that he can reasonably ask ; should have favours 

 voluntraily conferred upon him, not merely as a rew^ard for the services which he indivi- 

 dually is rendering the estate, but to induce its other tenants to foUovk^ his example, and 

 to make known to the whole that their conduct is observed, and distinctions made 

 between good and bad managers. 



4668. Estates, like men, have their good and bad characters. No skilful farmer who 

 has a capital to lose, will take up his residence on an estate of known bad chaiacter. 

 On the contrary, when once an estate has acquired the character of good faith and proper 

 treatment of its tenantry, men of money and spii-it will ever be anxious to gain a footing 

 there. Besides, the character of an estate will ever involve that of its possessor : and, 

 setting income at naught, it surely behoves a man of property to pay some attention to 

 the character of his estates ; for what can well add more to the permanent respectability 

 of a family of rank or fortune, than having its estates occupied by a wealthy and respect- 

 able tenantry ? 



4669. In a state of civilised society and property, one of the great arts of life is to teach 

 character and interest to go hand in hand, and on ordinary occasions to endeavour to turn 

 every incident, as it fortuitously occurs, to their mutual advantage. If a tenant of 

 capital and an improving spirit be found upon an estate, give him due encouragement, 

 for the purposes already explained. On the contrary, if another is found to possess re- 

 fractory habits, to swerve from his engagements, or to injure the lands in his occupation, 

 it is but common prudence to take the first legal and fair opportunity of dismissing him, 

 and supplying his place with another who is better qualiQed to fill it ; not more with a 

 view of rescuing his particular farm from further injury, and of making an example of 

 him ill terror to others of similar habits, than to preserve and heighten the character of 

 the estate. 



4670. These remarks viay be considered as applicable chiefly to small tenants, or such 

 as from ignorance and want of leases may be considered in a state of bondage. It 

 ought never to be in the power of a landlord to make " an example of a tenant in terror 

 to others;" it is enough if this power be left to the laws. A tenant who rents a farm 

 on certain conditions, and fulfils them, is, in point of obligation, on an equality with his 

 landlord ; neither is obliged to the other : and while the one does not require those acts 

 of kindness and liberality which Marshal inculcates, the other is not entitled to that 

 submission and slavish deference so common among tenants at will, and indeed most 

 others in England. It is justly observed by Brown {Treat, on Rnr. Aff. ) that the moral 

 excitement, or degree of encouragement, given to the tenant for improving the ground 

 put under his occupation, is regulated entirely by the terms or conditions of the lease 

 under which he holds possession. If the conditions be liberal and judicious, and accom- 

 modated to the soil and situation of the land thereby demised to the tenant, all that is 

 obligatory upon the proprietor is faithfully discharged. But when matters are otherwise, 

 when the tenant possesses under a short lease, when the covenants or obligations are 

 severe in the first instance and ultimately of little avail towards forwarding improve- 

 ment, it may reasonably be inferred that the connection is improperly constituted, and 

 that little benefit will thence follow either to the public or to the parties concerned. 

 The proper view of a lease is, that it is merely a mercantile transaction reduced to 

 writing, in which both parties are on an equal footing. 



SuBSECT. 2. Business of letting Farms. 



4671. There are three methods of letting a farm : putting it up to public auction, and 

 taking the highest bidder for a tenant ; receiving written proposals, and accepting the 

 highest offer; and asking more rent for it than it is worth, haggling with different chap- 

 men, and closing with him who promises to give the most money, without regard to his 

 eligibility as a tenant. After a variety of obvious remarks. Marshal concludes, that 

 *' seeing in every situation, there is at all times a fair rental value, or market price of 

 lands, as of their products, there appears to be only one rational, and eventually pro- 

 fitable, method of letting a farm ; and this is, to fix the rent, and choose the tenant. In 

 the choice of a tenant every body knows the requisite qualifications to be, capital, skill, 

 industry, and character. The respective advantages of these qualities are amply 

 developed in The Treatise on Landed Property. 



SuBSECT. 3. Different Species of Tenancy. 



4672. The different holdings in use in Britain are at will, from year to year, for a term 

 of years, or for a life or lives. 



4673. The tenant holding at will, or until the customary notice be given by either party to the other, is 

 without any legal contract, or written agreement ; the only tie between the owner and the occupier being 

 the custom of the estate or of the country in which it lies, and the common law of the land. This may 

 be considered as the simple holding which succeeded the feudal or copyhold tenure j but which is now 

 fast going into disuse. 



467't. Holding fro7n year to year, under a written agreement, with specified covenants, is a more modern 



