130 
Land Drainage and Improvement 
ation due to repairs and maintenance — the cost of which new 
buildings reduce, — the effect of the improved accommodation on 
the renting value of the whole farm, the influence of good 
buildings in securing men of capital as tenants, and a variety of 
other points, all present themselves with varying force according 
to circumstances ; and exactly in proportion as the benefit is 
immediate or remote, direct or indirect, so will the greater or 
less length of term for the repayment of the cost have weight. 
In the building of cottages — an object increasing in importance 
every day — the question assumes a different aspect. Cottages pay 
Avorse than any other kind of estate improvement. Good dwellings 
for the labouring classes, nevertheless, are indirectly as beneficial 
to the owner and farm tenant as to the cottager, and it is the 
opinion of those who would encourage cottage-building that the 
term for repayment should be lengthened as much as the law 
will permit, in order that the proportion of the annual instalment 
to repay the cost may be reduced as much as possible. 
One of the advantages from extending the term for repayment 
most strenuously advanced by its advocates is that tenants 
generally, and very naturally, look more to what they have to 
pay as an increase of rent than to the durability of the work for 
which they are to be charged. A tenant, for instance, who 
desires to have his lands drained or his buildings made good, 
expresses the wish to his landlord ; and the first point discussed 
between them is whether or not the tenant will pay the annual 
instalment by which the outlay may be repaid. " That," answers 
the tenant, " will depend upon what money will be expended and 
what amount of instalment will be charged," and the too fre- 
quent result of the conference is that the work is limited to the 
present views of the tenant without due respect to the future and 
permanent interests of the landlord. If the tenant determines, 
lor instance, that he can only afford to pay, for what he wants, a 
given sum of money — say 60/. a year — the negotiation assumes 
a simple arithmetical character. Supposing the period of repay- 
ment to be limited to twenty-two years, and the annual instalment 
is 11. bs. per cent, (calculated at 4J per cent, interest), all that 
could be spent would be 826/. 10s. ; whereas if the period be ex- 
tended to thirty-one years the amount that may be expended without 
any increase of the annual instalment will be 990/., a difference 
which, it may fairly be said, Avill more than pay the extra cost of 
required durability. The consideration due to this view of the 
case becomes very obvious when it is remembered that the In- 
closure Commissioners, acting as protectors of the reversionary 
interests, will not sanction the execution of any drainage nor 
the erection of any buildings Vi^hich are not of a substantial 
character, whereby the cost of such works is frequently raised 
