LEASES AND YEARLY TENANCY. G5 



have some check upon them. If all men who farm were known to be 

 thoroughly honest, then all restrictive measures in leases might be done 

 away with ; but as landlords and agents have all characters of men to 

 deal with, they have the possibility to combat of a tenant or his heir 

 becoming a bad farmer, or he might be able to do some considerable 

 amount of damage to his occupation from a vindictive feeling against 

 his landlord, and consequently we must take some measures to check 

 any such bad farming where necessary. When tenants are known to be 

 thoroughly first-class farmers, all restrictive clauses should be relaxed 

 during the greater portion of a lease ; and it may serve to meet any con- 

 tingencies which may arise by taking measures for checking a tenant 

 from overcropping during the latter years of his lease. 



It is a matter of great importance that the conditions of a lease 

 should be expressed in plain terms, as disputes often occur from a want 

 of the terms of a lease being intelligibly stated. 



On most estates a form of lease is usually printed, which is made to 

 answer the purpose for every farm, no matter whatever diversity of soil 

 there may be on the different farms. Where all the farms on an estate 

 are of the same character of soil and climate, then one form of lease 

 will do for all ; but where each farm differs distinctly from another in 

 soil, subsoil, elevation, and general character, then each farm requires a 

 separate form of lease. 



I shall proceed to give a form of a lease as adopted and now in use 

 on a large estate in Scotland, and shall afterwards take it up and com- 

 ment upon it. 



I shall also give a form of an agreement as used on several large estates 

 in England, and under which the farms -are let from year to year, or 

 what is termed a " tenancy at will," and upon which I shall also make 

 a few remarks ; but I consider it only right to mention that, although 

 the examples are given of existing leases, I must not be held as agreeing 

 with all the conditions set forth. I give them as illustrations, not as 

 models. What a model lease should be has frequently been discussed, but 

 the question has not as yet been definitely settled, although certain agree- 

 ments are drawn up in a much more judicious spirit than others, and conse- 

 quently better suited to promote the mutual interests of all concerned. 



The following, then, is a form of lease now in use on large estates in 

 Scotland, and following which I shall proceed to make a few remarks 

 thereon : 



ARTICLES, REGULATIONS, and CONDITIONS tinder wMch the Farms, Pos- 

 sessions, and Crofts on the Lands and Estates belonging to , in the 

 Counties of , are to be let, and which are to be held as specially 

 referred to in the leases or minutes or missives of lease to be entered into be- 



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