49 RENT. 
tion of the productiveness of the soil, whether occa- 
sioned by the weather or by the application of 
science, as well as in the variation of prices. By 
this mode of paying rent, landlords would also de- 
rive the additional advantage of choosing skilful 
tenants, who, by increasing the produce of their 
farms would raise the average produce of the dis- 
trict, and consequently establish the means by which 
their rents would be increased. An inestimable 
benefit would result to the community from the 
adoption of this practice, by giving proprietors a 
more immediate pecuniary interest in increasing the 
produce of their estates and of the country around 
them, as also by its thus creating a strong induce- 
ment for them to reside on their estates. It may 
be objected that, by reducing rent as the average 
produce diminishes, there would a premium on bad 
farming be established. Such would be the case 
were the rent merely to vary with the produce of 
the farm for which it is paid; but when it is mainly 
dependant on the produce over a large district, the 
objection does not hold; for the influence of a scanty 
crop of one farm in reducing the average of the dis- 
trict would be so small, and the loss from it to the 
farmer so great, that the increasing productiveness 
of his farm would be as much an object to him under 
this as any other system of payment. It would thus 
present no temptation to relax his energies. One of 
the strongest arguments in favour of this particu- 
lar system of fluctuating rents is, that, by propor- 
tioning their income to the state of the country, such 
a mode of rents would deprive proprietors of the 
most plausible argument against granting leases, and 
would, therefore, induce the practice with its num- 
erous good consequences to be greatly extended. On 
these and other grounds, which it is unnecessary.to 
state, we conclude that fluctuating rents ought to be 
regulated by the average both of price and acreable 
produce of grain throughout the county. 
‘*'We must now inquire, How can the annual 
average acreable produce of grain in each county be 
ascertained? The difficulty of determining this sta- 
tistical fact is the only considerable obstacle to the 
reduction of this theory of grain-rents to practice ; 
yet, though we cannot suggest any perfectly unob- 
jectionable means for effecting the object, we are 
confident that, were the country generally as much 
convinced as we are of the many important uses 
(besides the regulation of rent) to which this infor- 
mation might be applied, means would soon be used 
for obtaining it. Sufficiently accurate data might 
perhaps be obtained by examining, on oath, a num- 
ber of farmers from every parish in each county, on 
the average number of bushels of grain per acre 
grown on their farms in the previous season, in the 
same way as they are examined on the prices for 
which their grain is sold. Farmers would have no 
more difficulty in keeping an account of the quantity 
than of the price, and there would be as good a 
check on their statements of the quantity obtained 
as of the price for which it wassold. The mainten- 
ance and raising of their characters as agriculturists 
would, without any other check, be sufficient to pre- 
vent farmers from understating the acreable amount 
of their crops. We must, however, notice an ob- 
jection which will very readily be urged against any 
such inquiry. It will be considered at first as of too 
inquisitorial a nature, and the disclosure of the rate 
of produce on individual farms will be said to be 
taken advantage of by landlords in reletting them, 
to the prejudice of the tenants in possession. Such 
a disclosure might be avoided before the public. At 
any rate, each witness would only be called on to 
disclose, at long intervals, the return from his farm, 
perhaps not more than twice or thrice during his lease. 
But even if a more ample disclosure were required, 
tenants would have mach less ground of complaint 
REPTILES. 
against this than against the disclosure of their whole 
means and substance for the poor’s-rate assessment, 
or that exacted of every class but themselves in re- 
spect of the income-tax act, and of which they com- 
plain of not being allowed to do in the same way as 
others.” 
REPRODUCTION. See Propagation. 
REPTILES. In the Linnean arrangement, 
the class of cold-blooded vertebral animals which 
breathe by lungs, amphibia, consisted of two or- 
ders,—reptilia, having four feet, as the tortoise, 
frog, lizard, &c., and serpentia, having no exter- 
nal organs of motion. In Cuvier’s classification 
the class of reptzlia corresponds nearly to the 
amphibia of Linnseus, and is divided into the 
four orders of chelonia, tortoise, turtle,—saurva, 
crocodile, lizard, chameleon,—ophidia, serpents, 
boa, viper,—batrachia, frog, salamander, proteus, 
siren. Reptiles are distinguished from birds and 
quadrupeds by their cold blood and single heart 
(with only one ventricle), and from fish by 
their respiring through lungs. Their blood is 
never at a much higher temperature than that 
of the medium in which they live. No other 
animals are capable of enduring so great ex- 
tremes of heat and cold as the reptiles, especially 
some particular species: frogs, for instance, have 
continued to live in the human stomach, and in 
lumps of ice. From the peculiar structure of 
their bodies, they are able to suspend their re- 
spiration for a considerable time, and are also 
endowed with the faculty of enduring an ab- 
stinence that would prove fatal to warm-blooded 
animals. Most of them can live in the air as 
well as in water. Many live indifferently in 
either element. Some pass a certain period of 
life, or certain seasons of the year, in one, and 
the rest in the other; and some, finally, are con- 
fined to the water, or to the land. They live 
chiefly in morasses, swamps and stagnant waters, 
damp, dark places, caves, and holes in the earth. 
As means of defence, nature has given to some 
of them great bodily strength, or sharp teeth, as 
to the crocodile; to others a deadly poison, as to 
certain kinds of serpents; to others a hard cover- 
ing, as to the tortoise; to many a disgusting 
smell, or an acrid humour, which they eject. 
Some of them have a remarkable power of re- 
production, by which they renew parts of the 
body of which they have been deprived. Some 
can live for an incredibly long time without air, 
and even without food, and some undergo trans- 
formations like insects. None of them chew their 
food, but they swallow it whole, and digest it at 
leisure. They are in general extremely tenacious 
of life, and will continue to move, and perform 
other animal functions, even after the severest 
injuries. Their colours and general appearance 
are, in most instances, disagreeable: some, how- 
ever are decorated with the most vivid colour- 
ing. Their voices are either harsh and grating, 
or they are entirely dumb. Most reptiles are ovi- 
parous. In some, particularly in the frogs, the 
