150 Farming Customs and Covenants of England. 
between Latly-day and Michaelmas ; Midsummer and Christmas 
takings are becoming exceedingly rare. The farms are usually 
let on lease lor terms varying from seven to twenty-one years. 
There are, however, several instances of verbal agreement from 
year to year. Permanent and unexhausted improvements are not 
allowed for, except in a few cases. Draining is usually per- 
formed by the landlord, the tenant paying a percentage on the 
outlay, but occasionally it is done jointly. The Lady-day valua- 
tions comprise the growing wheat crop, and the acts of husbandry 
on the barley, oat, and turnip land ; and, on the Michaelmas 
holdings, the acts of husbandry on the root crops and fallow. It 
is, however, very usual, on a Michaelmas holding, to have a 
special agreement for entry at Midsummer to prepare a wheat 
tillage, and cultivate the roots, and on a Lady-day holding to 
have an entry at Christmas or Candlemas to prepare the land for 
spring crops, the outgoer being compensated for the land taken. 
Hay, straw, and dung left on the farm are the property of the 
incoming tenant. The outgoing tenant allows for the repairs 
necessary to the gates, fences, thatched roofs, &c. The Michael- 
mas tenant, on leaving, has the use of the barns and premises 
until Christmas or Candlemas, and the Lady-day tenant until the 
second week in May. 
Cumberland. — Candlemas is here the usual time of entry, 
but in some localities there are Lady-day takings ; leases and 
agreements are the rule, and yearly takings are very exceptional. 
Tenants are obliged by custom to keep their full stock of sheep 
and cattle up to the time of leaving, and may then sell the hay 
and straw which remain, but this custom is found to work very 
badly, and now it is usually agreed that (except a specified quantity 
of each), all the hay, straw, and roots shall be consumed on the 
farm. The incoming tenant claims the manure free of charge. 
The outgoing tenant is paid for the rent, rates, taxes, seed, and 
labour on all dead or bare fallows in the last year, and the cost 
price of clover and grass seeds sown the preceding spring, if left 
uninjured. When the entry is at Lady-day, the outgoing tenant 
is sometimes obliged to consume two-thirds of the hay, straw, 
and roots ; and where the entry is for the land at Candlemas, and 
the buildings at May-day, all the hay, straw, roots, &c., are to 
be consumed, and the manure left for the incoming tenant. 
When this last is the custom, the outgoer is only paid for one 
ploughing and harrowing, seed, wheat, carting, spreading 
manure, and the artificial manure put upon the dead fallow. 
Gates and fences are left in tenantable repaii-, or the incomer is 
paid for dilapidations. 
Derbyshire. — Lady-day is the invariable time of entry in 
this county, with a right of pre-entry on February 1st to plough 
