356 = 90 
English Land Law. 
tion. A tenancy from year to year, which is in this manner 
begotten by the law on an expired lease or agreement, is in 
reality not a tenancy by parol at all, and differs in no important 
particular from an ordinary yearly holding under the condi- 
tions of a written agreement, the consideration of which has 
hitherto been necessarily postponed. In such a case the terms 
of the holding are ascertainable with as much precision as in 
those tenancies which are created by a lease or an agreement 
extending over a term of years ; and the sole feature in which it 
resembles the ordinary parol tenancy from year to year, consists 
in its liability to determination at the end of any year by the 
six months' notice which the common law prescribes. The 
operation of custom on such a tenancy is of course as frequently 
excluded by the conventional terms adopted by implication, as 
in all other cases where the parties rely for the determination ol 
their rights upon the certainty and precision of a written in- 
strument. 
CHAPTEE III. 
Forms of Agreement. 
It is obvious that however satisfactory may be the results of 
parol tenancy, defined only by the unwritten custom of t 
country and the limits of loose verbal stipulation, in isolate 
cases where landlord and tenant are alike anxious to preser^ 
the relation which has arisen between them, and willing to hoi 
themselves bound by a moral obligation though the legal defin 
tion of their rights may be insufficient, yet a tenure so primitii 
must be imperfectly adapted to the requirements of the counti 
at large ; and it would be indeed a matter for surprise if a mo 
stringent and accurate mode of constituting a tenancy had n 
long ago been firmly established. To no description of contra 
Written agree- is the old doctrine " litera scripta manet" more applicable tb 
ments. ^.^ by which the relation of landlord and tenant is create 
and the very fact that its operation is intended to extend ovci 
period of time longer than that which most other agrcemei 
contemplate, is sufficient to render it most essential that soi 
trustworthy record of its terms and provisions should be p 
served. It was with this view that the Legislature enacted i 
the Statute of Frauds (29 Car. 2, c. 3), that no demises shoil 
be valid which were not put in writing and signed, except leai 
for a period not exceeding three years at a rent amounting ) 
two-thirds at least of the full yearly value, and that demis 
which affected to do more than this should result in creat ? 
