128 How a Landlord Should Farm. 



by the wise f ramers of that constitution that , every man 

 is to be secured in his property unless it is required for 

 a public purpose, when he is to have full compensation 

 for it. Here, indeed, we are supposed to have a safe- 

 guard in the Crown and the House of Lords, but they do 

 not ^eel themselves powerful enough to act as a restrain- 

 ing principle such as is effectively provided by the 

 American constitution, and hence we see that property 

 has been invaded in England, and is now liable to com- 

 pulsory acquisition for the benefit of others, though this 

 has been carried out in such a way as to make it appear 

 that it is not so, the original landlord being still held on 

 nominally as such, just as he is in Ireland, though 

 deprived of nearly all his original landlord's rights over 

 the land. Taking all these circumstances into consider- 

 ation, it is of evident importance to show how a landlord 

 should farm with the least risk both to his own interests, 

 and those of his successor, for it would seem that a 

 landlord can only be reasonably certain of retaining full 

 possession of his land by farming it himself. The 

 second point is of great importance, generally speaking, 

 but would become of serious importance in the event of 

 the successor being a minor, as though his guardians 

 would have no difficulty in continuing my system of 

 farming, and be able to do so at small risk of loss, the 

 more expensive system of farming usually adopted could 

 not be carried on without great probability of considerable 

 loss in the case of unfavourable seasons. In the latter 

 case the guardians would probably, or I may say 

 certainly, let the land farmed by the minor's pre- 

 decessor, to be possibly run out, as so much of the land 

 has been in this country. For his own sake, then, and 

 for the sake of his successor, the landlord should, in my 

 opinion, adopt whatever system of farming will yield, 

 and with the least probable risk, a fair rent for the land, 

 interest on his floating capital at 3 per cent., and a 

 steady increase in the value of the fixed capital — ^in 

 other words, the fertility of the soil which, combined 



