Book IV. SPECIES OF TENANCY. 765 



usage, and becoming more and more prevalent in some parts of England, and among small tenants, even 

 where leases for a term of years were formerly granted. 



4675. Leases for a term of years, as seven, fourteen, twenty-one, or a greater number of years, certain ; 

 but without the power of assignment, unless with the consent of the lessor. 



4676. Leases for lives s as, one, two, three, or more, without the power of assignment. In Britain, life 

 leases of this description are now rarely granted. In Wales and Ireland they are still prevalent ; the rent 

 being there settled according to the value of the land at the time of letting ; as on granting a lease for a 

 term. In the western extreme of England, what are termed life leases are still common : but they are 

 rather pledges for money taken up, or deeds of sale for lives, than leases ; for nearly the whole of the esti- 

 mated sale value of the ,land, during the life term, is paid down at the time of purchase, the seller 

 reserving only a quit rent', or annual acknowledgment. 



4677. A lease for a term of years, or for two or more lives, can alone be favourable for 

 the progress of agriculture. A farmer holding at will, or from year to year, may plough, 

 sow, and reap ; but he will, if a prudent man, be veiy careful not to make improvements, 

 well knowing that the first effect would be a rise of rent or a notice to quit. Leases for 

 a single life have the great disadvantage of uncertainty in duration, both as to landlord 

 and tenant ; and though the latter may insure a certain sum on his life for the benefit of 

 his family, yet it were better that he should lay out that money in improving the farm. 

 Leases on lives, renewable, are for all purposes of culture as good as freehold ; but they 

 have this disadvantage to a tenant, that they require a considerable part of his capital paid 

 down, and a further draught on his capital on the falling in of any of the lives. Even 

 the first of these payments would embarrass the great majority of professional farmers, 

 and disable them from bestowing proper cultivation on the soil ; but to a farmer with a 

 surplus capital no description of lease can be better, as he lays out his surplus capital at 

 the market rate of interest, and is, as it were, his own annuitant. To the landlord such 

 leases cannot be advantageous ; because, there being fewer who can compete for them, 

 lands let on these conditions do not fetch their full price. 



4678. The fundamental principle on which both the duration and conditions of leases 

 are established is evidently this : A agrees to lend to B a certain article for his use for 

 an equivalent in money ; but such is the nature of this article, that, in order to use it 

 with advantage, B must possess it during a considerable time : he, therefore, requires a 

 security ft-om A to that effect ; and A on his part requires a security from B that he 

 will return the article at least in as good condition as when it was lent to him. The term 

 of years for which the article is to be lent, and the precautions taken to insure its return 

 without deterioration, are founded on experience, and vary according to the peculiar cir- 

 cumstances of lender and borrower. In general, however, this is obvious, that where 

 the period of lending is not sufficient for profitable use, or the conditions required for 

 ensuring the lender an undeteriorated return of the article unreasonable, the value of the 

 loan or rent will be proportionably diminished. {Sup. Enc. Brit. art. Agr. ) 



4679. In recurring to what actually exists in the best cultivated districts, we shall quote 

 the excellent observations of an experienced farmer and approved public writer: " The 

 general principle which should regulate the connection between landlord and tenant seems 

 to be, that while the farm ought to be restored to the owner at the expiration of the tenant's 

 interest, at least without deterioration, the tenant should be encouraged to render it as 

 productive as possible during his possession. In both of these views, a lease for a term 

 of years is scarcely less necessary for the landlord than for the tenant ; and so much is the 

 public interested in this measure, that it has been proposed by intelligent men, to impose 

 a penal tax on the rent of lands held by tenants at will. 



4680. That the value of the property is enhanced hy the security which such a lease confers on the tenant 

 Xvill be put beyond all doubt, if the rents of two estates for half a century back are compared ; the one 

 occupied by tenants at will, and the other by tenants on leases for a moderate term, and where the soil 

 and situation are nearly alike in every respect. If the comparison be made between two tracts originally 

 very different in point of value, the advantages of leases will be still more striking ; while that which is 

 held by tenants at will remains nearly stationary, the other is gradually, yet effectually, improved, under 

 the security of leases, by the tenants' capital ; and, in no long period, the latter takes the lead of the 

 former, both in the amount of the revenue which it yields to the proprietor, and in the quantity of pro- 

 duce which it furnishes for the general consumption. The higher rents and greater produce of some 

 parts of Scotland than of many of the English counties, where the soil, climate, and markets are much 

 more favourable, must be ascribed to the almost universal practice of holding on leases in the former 

 country, in a much greater degree than to any of the causes which have been frequently assigned. Less 

 than a century ago, what are now the best cultivated districts of Scotland were very far behind the greater 

 part of England ; and, indeed, had made very little progress from the time of the feudal system. It is not 

 fifty years since the farmers of Scotland were in the practice of going to learn of their southern neighbours 

 an art, which was then very imperfectly known in their own country. But in several parts of Lngland 

 there has been little or no improvement since, while the southern counties of Scotland have uniformly 

 advanced ; and at present exhibit very generally, a happy contrast to their condition in the middle of the 

 last century. 



4681. In respect to farmers themselves, it cannot be necessary to point out the advantages of leases. It 

 maybe true, that, under the security of the honour of an English landlord, tenants at will have been con. 

 tinued in possession from generation to generation, and acquired wealth which he has never, like the 

 landholders of some other countries, attempted to wrest from them. But there are few individuals in any 

 rank of life, who continue for a length of time to sacrifice their just claims on the altar of pure generosity. 

 Something is almost always expected in return. A portion of revenue in this case is exchanged for 

 power, and that power is displayed not only in the habitual degradation of the tenantry, but in the control 

 over them, which the landlord never fails to exert at the election of members of parliament, and on all 

 other political emergencies. No prudent man will ever invest his fortune in the improvement of another 

 person's property, unless, from the length of his lease, he has a reascmable prospect of being reimbursed 



