36 
Agricultural Progress and 
Of these obstacles the least are those connected with providing 
the requisite capital. Many landlords have funds at their dis- 
posal which they would be happy to invest on such undeniable 
security as their own land, especially to obtain such a liberal 
return as a moderate increase of rent would supply, and 
which, if the outlay were judiciously made, would be cheerfully 
paid. The owners of encumbered or settled estates have also 
such facilities of obtaining advances either from Government or 
private companies that some more influential reasons than the 
want of funds must be found before the very slight progress 
made by the lease-system can be explained. 
One of the most general of these causes is dislike on the part 
of landowners to dispossess deserving tenants, many of whom 
have held the same farms from father to son for generations, 
and between whom and their landlord there exist personal ties, 
which, if rudely severed, would be most inadequately replaced 
by a few shillings an acre additional rent. Another equally in- 
fluential cause is the repugnance of the proprietors to give up so 
much of the control over their estates as is implied by a lease 
for any long term of years. They let their land below its 
market value, for the sake of retaining the power of resuming 
possession, at short notice, of any farm on which the tenant 
causes annoyance to his landlord, or sets a bad example to his 
neighbours. The knowledge that such a power exists makes it 
rarely necessary to exercise it. 
It must not, however, be supposed that objections to leases are 
only to be met with amongst, landowners. Many tenants dislike 
the idea of being bound down for a term of years "for better 
for worse, for richer for poorer," and if coupled with a moderate 
increase of rent, leases would, we are persuaded, be declined by 
a majority of tenants at will. On a property in the north of 
England, entirely held under agreements terminable at six months' 
notice, the writer once offered nineteen-year leases, on the Scotch 
principle, to the whole of the tenants. They took time for con- 
sideration, but eventually declined them to a man. On being 
asked their reasons, they said " they considered that under their 
existing tenure the advantage was all on their side, for if farming 
prospered, they were sure they should not be disturbed, and if 
bad times should come, their hands would not be tied." 
As these causes will probably long continue to operate, it is 
worth considering whether there are any practicable means of at 
once mitigating the evils arising front the very prevalent custom of 
letting farms at will, or on agreements terminable at six months' 
notice. These evils, though apparently of very different kinds, such 
as injury to the public by the inadequate cultivation of the land, 
and injury to the tenant, who, without sufficient cause, is suddenly 
