360 
Overhanging Trees. 
written, and it is deemed right to insert a further note of that fact, 
in order that no incorrect conclusions of law may be disseminated 
through the Journal. 
The first case was reversed partly on the ground that there was 
no evidence that the colt had eaten the defendant’s yew bushes, 
and partly that if it had eaten them it could not have done so 
without going on to the defendant’s land, which it had no right to 
do, there being no liability on the part of the defendant to repair 
the fence, so as to prevent the colt from going on to his land. 
The second case was reversed on the ground that a landowner is 
entitled to cut off the branches of his neighbour’s trees which over- 
hang his land, however long they have been there, and that he is 
not bound to give his neighbour notice of his intention to cut them 
unless he has to go on the neighbour’s land for the purpose. 
S. B. L. Druce. 
9 Old Square, Lincoln’s Inn, W.C. 
METAYAGE AND ITS APPLICABILITY 
TO ENGLAND . 1 
At a time when the suggestion is again made that some kind of 
produce rents might be advantageous to agriculture in the United 
Kingdom, it may be useful to inquire into the nature of metayage , 
its advantages and drawbacks, in the country nearest home. With 
reference to this system Thorold Rogers says in his Political 
Economy (p. 1G6) : “The tenant pays a fixed quantity in money or 
produce for the use of his farm, generally using the landlord’s stock 
and seed. This kind of tenancy is called metayer in France . . . 
Such a tenancy prevailed in England for about sixty years.” This 
view of metayage, however, is hardly to be defended. It is not a 
fixed quantity either of money or produce which is paid by the 
tenant, but a fixed quolity of produce, or its equivalent in money if 
so agreed. And the essence of the contract lies rather in joint enter- 
prise than in joint capital. If agricultural contracts of this kind 
have never been Known in England, we cannot be surprised at there 
not being an English name for them. 2 By a loose extension of 
1 Abstract of a paper on “Metayage in Western France,” by Henry Higgs 
in the Economic Journal, Vol. IV.. No. 13, 1894. 
2 As the name occurs in several English dictionaries it may perhaps be 
regarded as anglicised. The following references are quoted from the Century 
Dictiona/ry : — 
M6tayage : the cultivation of land on shares ; the m6tayer system of agri- 
culture. 
Mitayage : that is to say, a kind of temporary partnership or joint venture, in which the pro- 
prietor supplies the laud and the seed, and the peasants do all the work with their own horses and 
implements.— D. M. Wallace, Rut sin, p. 519. 
Metayer [M.L, medietarixes, one who tills land for half the produce] : a 
