Book IV. RENTS AND COVENANTS OF LEASES. 767 



4690. To obviate these and other objections to a com rent, and to do equal justice at all times to both 

 landlord and tenant, a plan has been lately suggested for converting the corn into money, adopting for its 

 price, not the price of the year for which the rent is payable, but the average price of a certain 

 number of years. The rent, according to this plan, may be calculated every year, by omitting the first 

 year of the series, and adding a new one ; or, it may continue the same for a certain number of years, 

 and then be fixed according to a new average. Let us suppose the lease to be for twenty-one years, 

 the average agreed on being seven years, and the first year's rent, that is, the price of so many quarters of 

 corn, will be calculated from the average price of the crop of that year, and of the six years preceding. 

 If it be meant to take a new average for the second and every succeeding year's rent, all that is necessary 

 is, to strike off the first of these seven years, adding the year for which the rent is payable, and so on 

 during all the years of the lease. But this labour, slight as it is, may be dispensed with, by continuing the 

 rent without variation for the first seven years of the lease according to the average price of the seven 

 years immediately preceding its commencement, and, at the end of this period, fixing a new rent, 

 according to the average price of the seven years just expired, to continue for the next seven years. 

 Thus, in the course of twenty-one years, the rent would be calculated only three times ; and for whatever 

 quantity of corn the parties had agreed, the money payments would be equal to the average price of four- 

 teen years of the lease itself, and of the seven years preceding it ; and the price of the last seven years of 

 the old lease would determine the rent during the first seven years of the new one. 



4691. The landlord and tenant could not suffer, it has been thought, either from bad seasons, or any 

 change in the value of the currency, should such a lease as this be extended to several periods of twenty- 

 one years. The quantity of corn to be taken as rent, is the only point that would require to be settled at 

 the commencement of each of those periods ; and though this would no doubt be greater or less, according 

 to the state of the lands at the time, yet it may be expected, that in the twenty-one years preceding, all 

 the tenant's judicious expenditure had been fully replaced. Instead of the twofold difficulty in fixing a 

 rent for a long lease, arising from uncertainty as to the quantity of produce, which must depend on 

 the state of improvement, and still more, perhaps, from the variations in the price of that produce ; the 

 latter objection is entirely removed by this plan ; and in all cases where land is already brought to a high 

 degree of fertility, the question about the quantity of produce may likewise be dispensed with. 



4692. If the corn-rent planbe applied to leases of nineteen or twenty-one years, the inconvenience result- 

 ing from uncertainty as to the amount of rent, as well as other difficulties which must necessarily attend 

 it, would be as great, perhaps, as any advantages which it holds out to either of the parties. If it be said 

 that a rent, determined by a seven years' average, could not suddenly nor materially alter, this is at once 

 to admit the inutility of the contrivance. The first thing which must strike every practical man is, that 

 corn is not the only produce of a farm, and in most parts of Britain, perhaps not the principal source from 

 which rent is paid ; and there is no authentic record of the prices of butcher meat, wool, cheese, butter, 

 and other articles in every county to refer to, as there is of corn. This is not the place to enquire whether 

 the price of corn regulates the price of all the other products of land, in a country whose statute books 

 are full of duties, bounties, drawbacks, &c., to say nothing of its internal regulations ; but it is sufficiently 

 evident that, if corn does possess this power, its price operates too slowly on that of other products to serve 

 as a just criterion for determining rent on a lease of this duration. Besides, in the progress of agriculture, 

 new species or varieties of the cerealia themselves are established even in so short a period as twenty-one 

 years, the prices of which may be very different from that of the corn specified in the lease. What 

 security for a full rent, for instance, would it give to a landlord, to make the rent payable according to the 

 price of barley, when the tenant might find it more for his interest to cultivate some of the varieties of 

 summer wheat, lately brought from the Continent ? or, according to the price of a particular variety of 

 oats, when, within a few years, we have seen all the old varieties superseded, throughout extensive dis- 

 tricts, by the introduction of a new one, the potato-oat, which may not be more permanent than those 

 that preceded it ? There can be no impropriety, indeed, in adopting this plan, for ascertaining the rent 

 of land kept always in tillage j but it would be idle to expect any important benefits from it, during such 

 a lease as we have mentioned. 



4693. The corn-rent plan, in the case of much longer leases, will no doubt diminish the evils which we 

 think are inseparable from them, but it cannot possibly reach some of the most considerable. Its utmost 

 effect is to secure to the landholder a rent which shall in all time to coraebe an adequate rent, according 

 to the state of the lands and the mode of cultivation known at the date of the lease. But it can make no 

 provision that will apply to the enlargement of the gross produce from the future improvement of the 

 lands themselves, or of the disposable produce from the invention of machinery and other plans for econo- 

 mising labour. And the objections just stated, in reference to a lease of twenty-one years, evidently 

 apply much more forcibly to one of two or three times that length. Old corn-rents, though much higher 

 at present than old money-rents, are seldom or never so high as the rents that could now be paid on a 

 lease of twenty-one years. But, independently of these considerations, which more immediately bear 

 upon the interests of the parties themselves ; one insuperable objection to all such leases is, that they 

 partake too much of the nature of entails, and depart too far from that commercial character which is 

 most favourable to the investment of capital, and consequently to the greatest increase of land pro- 

 duce. 



4694. The most recent opinions on this subject are in favour of a money rent, or of a rent formed partly 

 from the average prices of produce, and partly of money, but somewhat complicated in its arrangement, 

 and therefore not likely to come into general use. There seems, indeed, no essential reason why rents in 

 agriculture should not be regulated on the same general principle as rents in commerce ; and were it not 

 for the extraordinary fluctuation that has taken place in the currency of the country within the last forty 

 years, it is more than probable no such alteration of principle would ever have been thought of. The 

 reader who wishes to enter more at length into this subject, may consult the most recent works on poli- 

 tical economy, and especially M'Culloch's Principles. He will also find a paper on the subject, of some 

 practical value, in the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, vol. i. p. 809. and vol. ii. p. 126. 



4695. Mr. M^Culloch, in the second edition of his Principles of Political Economy, with reference to 

 corn rents, observes, that the disturbing effects of changes in the value of money are averted, at the same 

 time that the effect of those which occur in the cost of producing corn are mitigated. This plan, he adds, 

 is, however, defective, inasmuch as it obliges the tenant to pay more than the fair value of his farm in 

 scarce years ; while, on the other hand, it has the effect of improperly reducing the landlord's rents in 

 years of unusual plenty. A simple device has, however, been fallen upon, which has gone far to reduce 

 these defects : this consists in fixing a maximum and a minimum price, it being declared in the lease 

 that the produce to be paid to the landlord shall be converted into money, according to the current prices 

 of the year ; but that, to whatever extent prices may rise above the maximum price fixed in the lease, 

 the landlord shall have no claim for such excess of price. By means of this check, the tenant is prevented 

 from paying any great excess of rent in scarce years. And to prevent, on the other hand, the rent from 

 being improperly reduced in very plentiful years, a minimum price is agreed on by the parties; and it is 

 stipulated that, to whatever extent prices may sink below this limit, the landlord shall be entitled to re- 

 ceive this minimum price for the fixed quantity of produce payable to him. This plan has been intro- 

 duced into some of the best cultivated districts in the empire, particularly East Lothian and Berwickshire ; 

 and the experience of the estates in which it has been adopted shows that it is as effectual as can well 

 be desired, for the protection of the just rights of both parties, and for securing the progress of agri- 

 culture. 



4696. The terms of payment of rent differ a little in different districts and countries. Rents, in Scotland, 

 are paid either previously to the first crop being reaped, when they are ca\\Qdfore-rents ; or they are paid 



