166 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



with profit ; and the servility which holding atwill necessarily exacts is altogether incompatible with that 

 spirit of enterprise whicii belongs to an enlightened and independent mind. 



4682. Every measure which has a tendency to fetter the productive powers of the soil, must deeply 

 affect the pulilic at lar^o'e, as well as depress one of the largest and most valuable classes. It is clearly 

 their interest, that corn and other provisions should be supplied in abundance, and the people of England 

 may justly complain of the want of leases, as one of the principal causes which check the improvement 

 of their own territory. 



4683. What ought to be the term of a lease can only be determined by a reference to the circumstances 

 of each particular case. Lands naturally rich, or such as have already been brought to a high degree of 

 fertility, requiring no great investment of capital, and returning all or nearly all the necessary outlay 

 within the year, may be advantageously held upon short leases, such as perhaps give time for two, or 

 at most three of the rotations or courses of crops to which the quality of the soil is best adapted. The 

 practice of England in this respect is extremely various, almost every term, from twenty years down- 

 wards, being found in different parts of it. In Scotland, by far the most common period is nineteen years, 

 to which it was formerly the practice, in some places, to add the life of the tenant. In that country, even 

 when it is thought expedient to agree for a much longer terra, this is still expressed in periods of nineteen 

 years, a sort of mysterious cycle, which seems to be no less a favourite with the courts of law than with 

 landholders and farmers. Yet this term is somewhat inconvenient, as it can never correspond with any 

 number of the recognised rotations of arable land. 



4684. A lease for tiventy years, it has been maintained by several writers, is not sufficient to reimburse 

 a tenant for any considerable improvements, and landholders have often been urged to agree to a much 

 longer term, which, it is alleged, would be not less for their own interest than for that of the tenant. This 

 is a question which our limits do not permit us to discuss ; but, after viewing it in different lights, assisted 

 by the experience of long leases in different parts of Scotland, we cannot help expressing some doubts of their 

 utility, even in so far only as it regards the parties themselves ; and we are decidedly of opinion, that a 

 greater produce will be brought to market, from any given extent of land held on successive leases of 

 twenty years, for half a century, than if held on one lease of that duration, whether the term be specified, 

 or indefinite as is the case of a lease for life. As a general mode of tenure, leases for lives seem to 

 us particularly objectionable. 



4t)85, The great advantages of a lease are so well known in Scotland, that one of her best agricultural 

 writers, himself a landed proprietor, has suggested a method of conferring on it the character of perpetuity, 

 to such an extent as, he thinks, would give ample security to the tenant for every profitable improve- 

 ment, without preventing the landlord from resuming possession upon equitable terms, at the expiration 

 of every specified period. But the author of this plan (Lord Kaimes), in his ardent wishes for the advance- 

 ment of agriculture, at that time in a very backward state in his native country, seems to have overlooked 

 the difficulties that stood in the way of its adoption ; and the great advance in the price of produce, and 

 consequently in the rate of rents, since his lordship wrote, have long since put an end to the discussion 

 which his proposal excited. For a form of a lease on his plan, the reader may consult Bell's Treatise on 

 Leases ; and the objections to the plan itself are shortly stated in the supplement to the sixth edition of 

 The Gentleman Farmer, recently published. 



4686. Long leases granted upon condition of receiving an advance of rent at the end of a certain number 

 of years have been granted : but covenants of this kind, meant to apply to the circumstances of a distant 

 period, cannot possibly be framed in such a manner as to do equal justice to both parties ; and it ought not 

 to be concealed, that, in every case of a very long lease, the chances are rather more unfavourable to the land- 

 holder than to the farmer. If the price of produce shall continue to rise as it has done, till very lately, 

 for the last forty years, no improvements which a tenant can be expected to execute will compensate the 

 landlord's loss ; and if, on the other hand, prices shall decline, the capital of most tenants must be 

 exhausted in a few years, and the lands will necessarily revert to the proprietor, as has been the case of 

 late in many instances. Hence a landholder, in agreeing to a long lease, can hardly ever assure himself 

 that the obligations on the part of the tenant will be fully discharged throughout its whole term, while 

 the obligations he incurs himself may always be easily enforced. He runs the risk of great loss from a 

 depreciation of money, but can look forward to very little benefit from a depreciation of produce, except 

 for a few years at most. Of this advantage a generous man would seldom avail himself; and, indeed, 

 in most instances, the advantage must be only imaginary, for it would be over-balanced by the de- 

 terioration of his property." {Sup. Encyc. Brit. art. Agr.) 



4687. There are various objections made to leases of nineteen or twenty-one years. Some of these are 

 of a feudal and aristocratical nature ; such as the independence it gives the tenants, who may become 

 purse-proud and saucy under the nose of their landlord, &c. A greater objection has arisen from 

 the depreciation of British currency during the last ten years of the eighteenth, and first ten of the 

 nineteenth centuries. Various schemes have been suggested to counteract this evil ; but the whole of 

 them are liable to objections, and it may be doubted if it admits of any remedy, except a compromise 

 between the parties. 



SuBSECT. 4. Rent and Covenants of a Lease. 



4688. To avert the evils of fired money rents, and long leases, both to landlords and 

 tenants, the best mode known at present is the old plan of corn rents. This plan was 

 first revived in 1811, by a pamphlet published in Cupar, which attracted considerable 

 attention, and has led to the adoption in various parts of Scotland, of a mixed mode of 

 paying rents, partly in corn or the price of corn, and partly in money. In hilly districts, 

 wool, or the price of wool for an average of years, is sometimes fixed on instead of com. 

 We shall quote from the same intelligent writer on the duration of leases, his sentiments 

 on corn rents, and subjoin his observations on covenants. 



4689. Though the most equitable mode of determining the rent of lands on lease, would be to make it 

 rise and fall with the price of corn ; yet a rent paid in corn is liable to serious objections, and can 

 seldom be advisable in a commercial country. It necessarily bears hardest on a tenant when he least able 

 to discharge it. In very bad seasons, his crop may be so scanty, as scarcely to return seed and the expenses 

 of cultivation, and the share which he ought to receive himself, as the profits of his capital, as well as the 

 quantity allotted to the landlord, may not exist at all. Though, in this case, if he pays a money rent, his 

 loss may be considerable, it may be twice or three times greater if the rent is to be paid in corn, or 

 according to the high price of such seasons. In less favourable years, which often occur in the variable 

 climate of Britain, a corn rent would, in numerous instances, absorb nearly the whole free or disposable 

 produce, as it is by no means uncommon to find the gross produce of even good land reduced from twenty 

 to fifty per cent, below an average in particular seasons. And it ought to be considered, in regard to the 

 landlord himself, that his income would thus be doubled or trebled, at a time when all other classes were 

 suffering from scarcity and consequent dearth ; while, in times of plenty and cheapness, he might find it 

 difficult to make his expenses correspond with the great diminution of his receipts. It is of much im- 

 portanceto both parties, that the amount of the rent should vary as little as possible from any unforeseen 

 causes, though tenants in general would be perhaps the most injured by such fluctuations. 



