258 
Farmiwj of Oxfordshire. 
proved the soil, he might have to pay an exorbitant fine. These 
leases are therefore unsatislactory to the lessee and the lessors, 
and are a dead loss to the country, as they are a barrier to all 
improvement. Colleges are very wisely taking up their bad 
leases, and, when the lands fall in, will probably let them to 
respectable tenants at a rat k rental. But they should exercise 
a sound discretion, and where their lessees are men of honesty 
and of sufficient capital, and manage their land with as much 
care as if it were their own freehold, then it would be unfair, if 
not unjust, to inflict heavy fines or refuse to renew the lease. 
But the creation of fresh leasehold property is not desirable, 
neither is it in accordance with the progressive improvement of 
the age. The college may for the moment be the richer for the 
premium paid, and have immunity from the trouble of attending 
to the outgoings of the estate, but in the long run it will in- 
variably suffer. 
Farm-leases are the exception, not the rule ; one may here 
and there be found, but almost all the land is held from year to 
year, subject to a six months' notice to quit. Landlords do not 
like granting leases ; they still argue as they did in the days of 
Arthur Young : " To grant leases is to give away your estate ; 
it is to bind yourself, and leave your tenant free : it gives him a 
knowledge of the exact time at which he can begin to depreciate 
without injury to himself." But it may be asked where are 
gigantic and permanent improvements to be found ? — in Oxford- 
shire, or the Lothians ? Which estates have been most improved 
by the tenantry — Blenheim or Holkham ? 
It is easy to say that a farmer with a lease can begin to 
exhaust his land with impunity. Under the year-to-year 
system, he seldom put his land into a condition that will 
admit of exhaustion. The clay lands of the county are in much 
the same state as they were a century ago. It is still frequently- 
said that in Oxfordshire " great improvements are rarely wanted, 
and that for common farming neither a great degree of confidence 
nor the security of a lease is required." The first assertion 
cannot be true. On the poor cLalk hills, the hungry green- 
sands, and the thin stonebrash, high farming is as necessary as 
in West Norfolk. And on all the clays a heavy expenditure in 
the shape of ditching and draining is required. There is surely 
a considerable degree of confidence requisite for tenants to under- 
take this. " The only true and systematic incentive to improve- 
ment is the certainty of profit in the expenditure of capital."' 
Every agriculturist must know the great difference between a. 
farm where good and expensive management is exerted and 
another in which the main object is to do as little as possible. 
Some of the tenants of this county follow the latter course, for 
