English Land Law. 
SQ7 = 101 
ebruarj, the lord who was entitled to the reversion was also 
ititled to the profits of the whole year ; but if he died between 
le beginning of March and the end of August, the heirs of 
e tenant received the whole. And from hence our law of em- 
ements seems to have been derived." The doctrine of emble- 
ents, as Blackstone elsewhere explains, extended only to corn 
iwn, roots planted, or other annual artificial profit. It is 
lierwise of fruit trees, grass, and the like, which are not planted 
annually at the expense and labour of the tenant, but are either 
permanent or natural profit of the earth ; for when a man 
ants a tree he cannot be presumed to plant it in contemplation 
any present profit, but merely with a prospect of its being 
seful to himself in future, and to a future succession of tenants." 
[ere, then, in the doctrine of emblements, we have a first legal 
cognition in England of tenant-right ; and when husbandry 
as rude, and could hardly be said to exist as an art, there was 
) great hardship in a rule which secured to the husbandman, 
ith certain limitations, the crops of the year, but gave him no 
rther rights in the soil. The year's crops would represent 
■etty accurately the return to which he was entitled for his 
idustry ; unexhausted improvements would be to him words 
ithout meaning. 
Gradually, as some amount of capital and skill came to be Growth of 
iported into English agriculture, there arose a variety of local tenant s claims, 
istoms already mentioned, recognising the tenant's claims, on 
e termination of the tenancy, to compensation for tillage and 
anures, the benefit of which then remained in the land, wholly 
in part. This varying compensation was paid by the land- 
rd or, more generally, by the incoming tenants, and such 
lyments were recognised and enforced by the Courts of Law. 
was unequal, of course, but that the farmer became entitled to 
ly compensation at all is the main fact of interest in our present 
trospect. 
Local custom was thus enforced by Courts of Law long before 
was embodied in statute, or was recognised by the English 
^gislature. It therefore softened in practice the precariousness 
tenure, and the application of the rigorous rights of ownership 
er the soil. In Lincolnshire local custom came to be espe- 
ally favourable to the tenant, and there, accordingly, farming 
tracted men of the greatest skill and with the largest capital, 
id agriculture reached probably its highest perfection in Eng- 
nd. The result was seen to be of equal benefit to land- 
ids and to tenants. Farmers knew that, if disturbed in 
fir occupations, they would receive a fair proportion of the 
pital they had invested in the soil, and therefore put their 
mey into the land. In the shape of labour and manure, without 
VOL. XIV.— S. S. 2d 
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