350=54 
English Land Law. 
from year to year ; (2) yearly tenants under written agreements 
intended to extend over a considerable but uncertain time ; and 
(3) tenants under a lease or a binding agreement for a lease foi 
a fixed term, usually varying from 8 to 19 years. That descrip 
tion of tenancy which is created by a lease for a life or lives, o: 
for a term longer than 25 years at the outside, reserving a ren 
less than the actual yearly value, and generally purchased by ; 
money payment or premium to the original lessor, constitutes it 
reality a fourth kind of tenure by itself, which is not general!' 
agricultural in its character, and need not be considered here 
But it is almost essential to a proper comprehension of th 
second and third classes of tenancy mentioned above to conside 
in the first place the nature and origin of a simple tenancy fror 
year to year, and its adaptability to the interests of the owner c 
the soil, as well as of its possessor. 
Tenancies at It is generally conceded that the oldest and simplest form c 
holding known to the law of this or any other country was 
tenancy at will ; and this tenure, as well as that from year 1 
year into which it grew, were necessarily familiar to the earlie; 
cultivators of the soil, long before the heritable tenures whic 
conferred an estate or property in the soil rested upon any legi 
foundation. Yearly tenancy, however, in its modern form, 
practically the outcome and result of the superior or heritab 
tenures already described, and must be considered as subserviei 
and ancillary to them. It was impossible for the lords of mano 
or the proprietors of fiefs to occupy, either by themselves 
their serfs, the extensive tracts of land on which a plough mig 
be driven in no other name ; and after the passing of the statu 
of Quia emptores in the thirteenth century, by which the syste 
of sub-infeudation that had previously existed was put an end i 
it was no longer possible for the landowner to alienate any p; 
of his estate without losing all the rights of seignory and loi 
ship which he had up to that time been always able to reser' 
Tenancies at will, in which the occupier paid a relit certain, I 
was liable to be evicted at any time at the pleasure of the own 
were of course known long before this enactment, but there c 
be no doubt that from the date of the statute referred to tl 
came every year into more general adoption. Disadvantage! > 
as such a holding must necessarily have been, not only to 
occupier but to the true interests of the landowner himself, ; 
inconveniences were in some measure diminished by the comn i 
KmWcmcnts. |aw or custom of the country as to emblements, which gav( > 
the tenant at will the property in such crops as he had actu. 
sown, but which had not yet arrived at maturity when his h( 
ing was terminated by the will of the lessor. In most case l 
was in effect necessary for the due assertion of this right tit 
