PAROL AGREEMENT FOR A LEASE. 415 



of specific performance, where the property, the rent, and tlie other 

 material points on the lease were sufficiently described and ascertained. 



A parol affreement for a lease, evidenced hy a memorandum sfatliiij 

 terms and rent, under which the tenant took possession, was decreed, on 

 appeal from Stuart V.C. to the Lord Chief Justices, to be specifically 

 performed, although it was uncertain whether the tenant had not 

 committed a breach of some of the proposed covenants ; but in case the 

 defendant should bring an action for such breaches, the plaintiff in 

 equity was not to be at liberty to plead that the deed was not executed 

 until after it purported to be {Pain v. Coomls). It was decided by 

 Lord Lyndhurst Ch., confirming the decree of Knight-Bruce V.C, that 

 an agreement for a lease may he assigned ; and where a landlord enters 

 into an agreement to lease a farm to B., who assigns the agreement to 

 C, the landlord is entitled to have the personal liability of B. for the 

 performance of the covenants of the lease to be granted to C, in pursu- 

 ance of the covenant {Dowell v. Deiv). And where an agreement was 

 entered into by a landlord with a tenant in possession of a farm, under 

 a lease, to renew tJie lease upon its expiration, ivMch was executed hy the 

 landlord only, and not hy the tena?it, such agreement was not nudum 

 2)actum, and the tenant, who continued some time in possession of the 

 farm under it, after the expiration of the lease, might enforce it against 

 the landlord {ih.). Knight-Bruce V.C, in the course of his observations 

 in the same case on evidence adduced in equity as to the annual value of 

 a farm, and the repairs of farm buildings, and the cultivation of a farm 

 according to covenants in a lease, and the waiver of forfeiture of a lease 

 by a landlord, said, "It has been a very old principle of law to disregard 

 unimportant matters of waste; for if according to a liberal intei-jiretation 

 of strict covenants, a tenant was to be ejected for a foul turnip-field, an 

 unhinged gate, a broken shutter, or small matters of that description, 

 which frequently occur on the best-managed farms, there would scarcely 

 be a lease in existence throughout the kingdom. It is necessary that 

 in these cases juries and judges should make a reasonable allowance, 

 and not put too strict and precise an interpretation on such covenants," 

 According to Doe dem. Thomson v. Amey, ivhere a party is let into 

 possession, and pays rent under an agreement for a futiure lease for years, 

 tvhich is to contain a covenant against taking successive crops of corn, and 

 a condition of re entry for hreach of covenants, it was held that he thereby 

 became a yearly tenant, subject to the above terms and condition. 

 Patteson J. said, " In Mann v. Lovejoy, though the facts differed from 

 those of the present case, yet in principle the ruling oi Ahhot CJ. is in 

 favour of the plaintiff. It is said that a covenant respecting the rota- 

 tion of crops cannot be engrafted on a yearly tenancy ; but I see no 



