res PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



subsequently to the reaping, when they are termed back-rents. In England, it is believed that, with a few 

 exceptions in the border counties, back-rents are not in use. The effect of these rents is, to afford a long 

 credit to the tenant ; it is assumed that his means of paying any year's yent are chiefly derived from the 

 sale of the crop of that year, and hence he is allowed to reap and sell the crop, in order to pay the rent : 

 thus, if he enters at Whitsunday, 1829, and at separation of crop 1829 from ihe ground, his first year's crop 

 is that of 1830, and his first year's payment is usually made at Martinmas 1830, and Whitsunday 183). 

 Were he to pay what is termed fore-rent, his first term's payment would be at Martinmas 1829, and his 

 second at Whitsunday 1830 ; thus completing his first year's rent before his crop had been reaped. 

 Wherever custom has established the system of back-rents, it should not be disturbed ; by means of the 

 credit afforded, tenants are enabled to take land with a smaller capital, and to expend those funds in the 

 improvement of the farm, of which they must otherwise have been deprived. It must be thus attended 

 with one or other of two advantages to the landlord ; first, by bringing farms more within the reach of the 

 funds of takers, it excites greater competition ; or, secondly, it leaves a fund in hand to the lessee, for 

 the immediate cultivation of his land. In Scotland this system is attended with no hazard, since landlords 

 have always, in that country, a security, by means of their legal rights of hypothec, on the crop of the tenant. 

 In the case of farms merely pastoral, indeed, the landlord's claims will not be well secured, because a tenant 

 removing at Whitsunday will have left no crop behind to answer for the rent : in farms of this nature, 

 accordingly, rents are stipulated to be paid in advance. {Quar. Jour. Agr. vol. ii. p. 134.) 



4697. A lease for a term of years is not, in all cases, a sufficient encouragement to spirited cultivation ; 

 its covenants in respect to the management of the lands may be injudicious ; the tenant may be so strictly 

 confined to a particular mode of culture, or a particular course of crops, as not to be able to avail himself 

 of the beneficial discoveries which a progressive state of agriculture never fails to introduce. Or, on the 

 other hand, though this is much more rare, the tenant may be left so entirely at liberty, that either the 

 necessity of his circumstances, during the currency of the lease, or his interest towards its expiration, may 

 lead him to exhaust the soil, instead of rendering it more productive. When a lease therefore is either 

 redundant, or deficient in this respect, where it either permits the lands to be deteriorated, or prevents 

 their improvement ; the connection between landlord and tenant is formed upon other views, and regu- 

 lated by some other principle, than the general one on which we think it should be founded. 



4698. Restrictive covenants are always necessary to the security of the landlord, notwithstanding the 

 high authority of Dr. Smith to the contrary, and in some cases beneficial to the tenant. Their expediency 

 cannot well be questioned in those parts of the country where an improved system of agriculture has made 

 little progress. A landholder, assisted by the advice of men experienced in framing these covenants, can- 

 not adopt any easier or less offensive plan for the improvement of his property, and the ultimate advan- 

 tages of his tenantry. Even in the best cultivated^ districts, while farms continue to be let to the highest 

 responsible offerers, a few restrictive covenants cannot be dispensed with. The supposed interest of the 

 tenant is too feeble a security for correct management, even during the earlier part of a lease; and in the 

 latter part of it, it is thought to be his interest, in most cases, to exhaust the soil as much as possible, not 

 only for the sake of immediate profit, but frequently in order to deter competitors, and thus to obtain a 

 renewal of his lease at a rent somewhat less than the lands would otherwise bring. {Sup. Encyc. Brit. art. 

 Agr.') In England the tenant is generally bound down by a mass of cumbrous and useless covenants, not 

 only depriving him of the power of exercising all judgment, but often tying him to a course at variance 

 with the interest of both the contracting parties. A few simple, but precise stipulations, will, for the 

 most part, be sutficient to restrain the lessee from an injurious course of cultivation, and supersede the 

 necessity of those vexatious covenants which are often too heedlessly imposed upon him. {Quar. Jour. 

 Agr. vol. i. p. 798.) 



4699. IVith tenants at will, and such as hold on short leases, restrictive covenants are more necessary 

 than with tenants on leases of nineteen or twenty years ; but in many instances, they are too numerous 

 and complicated, and sometimes even inconsistent with the best courses of modern husbandry. The 

 great error lies, in prescribing rules by which a tenant is positively required to act, not in prohibiting 

 such practices and such crops as experience has not sanctioned. The improved knowledge, and the 

 liberality of the age, have now expunged the most objectionable of these covenants ; and throughout 

 whole counties, almost the only restriction in reference to the course of crops is, that the tenant shall not 

 take two culmiferous crops, ripening their seeds in close succession. This single stipulation, combined 

 with the obligation to consume the straw upon the farm, and to apply to it all the manure made from its 

 produce, is sutficient not only to protect the land from exhaustion, but to insure, in a great measure, its 

 regular cultivation ; for half the farm, at least, must, in this case, be always under either fallow or green 

 crops The only other necessary covenant, when the soil is naturally too weak for carrying annual crops 

 without intermission, is, that a certain portion of the land shall be always in gi'ass. According to the ex- 

 tent of this, will be the interval between the succession of corn crops on the same fields ; if it be agreed that 

 half the farm, for instance, shall always be under grass, there can be only two crops of corn from the same 

 field in six years. In this case, not more than two sixths being in corn, one sixth in green crops or fallow, 

 and three sixths in clover or grasses, it becomes almost impossible to exhaust any soil at all fitted for 

 tillage. There are few indeed that do not gradually become more fertile under this course of cropping. 

 It is sufficiently evident, that other covenants are necessary in particular circumstances ; such as permis- 

 sion to dispose of straw, hay, and other crops from which manure is made, when a quantity of manure 

 equal to what they would have furnished is got from other places ; and a prohibition against converting 

 rich old grazing lands or meadows into corn lands. In this place we speak only of general rules, such as 

 are applicable to, perhaps, nine tenths of all the arable land of Britain, and such as are actually observed 

 in our best cultivated counties. 



4700. For the last four years of a lease, the same covenants are generally sufficient, only they require 

 to be applied with more precision. Instead of taking for granted, that the proportion of the farm thafc 

 cannot be under corn, will be properly cultivated, from the tenant's regard to his own interest, it becomes 

 necessary to take him bound to this effect in express terms ; the object generally being to enable the tenant, 

 upon a new lease, to carry on the cultivation of the lands, as if the former lease had not terminated. 

 What these additional stipulations should be, must depend in part on the season of the year at which the 

 new lease commences, and in part on the course of crops best adapted to the soil, and the particular cir- 

 cumstances of every farm. 



4701. IVith respect to the form of a lease, as no one form would suit every district, nothing specific can 

 be laid down with advantage. The lawyers of every estate have particular forms, and it is easy for them, 

 in concert with the proprietor or manager, to obliterate useless or injurious restrictions, and substitute 

 such as may be deemed best for the estate, or in harmony v/ith the progress of the age. {,Sup. Encyc, 

 Brit. art. Agr.) 



SuBSECT. 5. Receiving Rents. 

 4702. The business of receiving the rents and profits of a landed estate, simple as it 

 may seem, is subject to analysis, and entitled to consideration. Indeed, on large pro- 

 perties, on which not fami rents only, but various other profits, are to be received, as 

 cottage rents, tithe compositions, chief rents, and, perhaps, quit rents of copyhold lands ; 

 the business becomes so complex as to require to be methodised and simplified, in order 

 to obtain the requisite facility and despatch. This is generally best effected by appointing 



