contra-distinction to the often-expressed opinion of | 
the farmers themselves, that wheat will continue to 
bear as high a proportion in price to other grains as 
it bears at present, however much the cultivation of 
all may increase or diminish. In truth, we rather 
expect to find the proportion of wheat becoming 
every year greater on account of its being sown more 
generally after turnips, and of the extended tillage 
of the old grass-land of England, most of which is 
admirably adapted for wheat. On these grounds, 
then, we are of opinion that wheat is likely to con- 
tinue to form the chief basis for calculating the fluc- 
tuating grain-rents of good arable farms. 
‘¢ We have now arrived at this point of our in- 
quiry— Whether ought the fluctuating or grain rent 
to be regulated by the average price alone, or by the 
average both of price and acreable quantity of grain 
produced throughout the district or county? We 
have already anticipated, so far, the answer to this 
question, by stating that, in the case of the share of 
rent payable from stock, if the rent is to fluctuate, 
it ought to fluctuate both with the average price and 
the quantity of stock, or of stock-feeding crops. 
Price alone, however, has hitherto been attended to 
in regulating grain-rents, This we consider to be a 
glaring defect in the system now followed, as applied 
to the present, and more especially to what we hope 
will be the future state of our grain markets. We 
consider such a system in many instances to be unfair 
to the proprietor and in others to the tenant. It is 
unfair to the proprietor when the crop of the county, 
and therefore, presumably, that of his own property, 
-exceeds the average quantity of many years’ crops in 
a greater degree than its price falls below the aver- 
age, and for the tenant, when the crop falls under 
an average quantity to a greater degree than its price 
rises above the average. But, suppose the fluctua- 
tions in price to be exactly the reverse of the fluc- 
tuations in quantity, the present method is far from 
being a proper one for adjusting rent; because, were 
the price to fall in the same proportion as the acre- 
able produce increased, the tenant ought still to have 
the same income from his farm, which being obtained 
at a smaller outlay, he would have a greater balance 
to pay rent from a large cheap crop than from a 
small dear one. Hence the present system of grain- 
rents is particularly unfavourable for the landlord 
when the crop is abundant and cheap, and equally 
so for the tenant when scanty and dear. Its only 
proper and justifiable tendency seems to be, to give 
the proprietor a share in the benefit from a rise in 
prices, when the rise is not produced by a deficiency 
of crop, and to protect the tenant against the entire 
loss from an unlooked-for reduction of price through 
an inundation of foreign corn. The extraordinary 
fluctuations in the price of grain in this country dur- 
ing the continental war were not caused entirely, or 
even chiefly, by corresponding variations in the quan- 
tity raised. ‘The immense rise in price, on some oc- 
casions, was caused partly by bad harvests, but still 
more by the fear of their recurrence, whilst foreign 
supplies were almost entirely excluded, and by spec- 
ulators being thus induced to diminish the supply for 
immediate consumption by storing grain. The sud- 
den and great fall in price on more recent occasions 
was caused by the abundant home supplies being 
rendered still more abundant by a sudden opening 
up of foreign traffic. The prices of grain, under 
both these circumstances, and similar circumstances 
have happened in earlier periods of our history, va-. 
ried much more than the quantity produced. The 
rent naturally payable, therefore, often depended 
more on the price than on the quantity, so that 
the regulation of fluctuating rents by the average 
price was the natural means to resort to. This 
system was adopted, and, no doubt, saved many a 
farmer from ruin, after the conclusion of the war, 
RENT, 
a 
and where adopted, then, secured to landlords a 
fair share of the rise in the markets occasioned by 
the war. Having thus far supplied the necessity 
which called it into existence, the present system of 
grain-rents is gradually becoming less popular—peo- 
ple are beginning to think that the most natural 
state of the relation between landlord and tenant is 
to pay most for the use of land only when it produces 
the most abundant crops. Various modifications have 
been introduced in the mode in which the system of 
grain-rents acts; but they are all merely empirical 
cures for the evil, and founded on no sound principle. 
We, therefore, come to this conclusion—That un- 
less both the first and second foundations of rent 
above laid down, that is, unless the county average 
of the acreable quantity, as well as that of the price 
of the regulating grain, be taken as an element in 
the calculation of fluctuating rents, these can never 
be properly adjusted. Indeed we conceive that, if 
one of the fundamental facts only is to be acted on, 
it ought in future to be rather the acreable quantity 
than the price of grain. We found this opinion on 
the consideration that there is a tendency more and 
more towards a free trade in corn, and that the more 
our markets are thrown open to the competition of 
agriculturists, from all climes and counteracting 
states of weather, the more steady should be the 
state of the markets; while we cannot suppose that 
the quantity we ourselves produce will by that com- 
petition be rendered more constant. We would by 
no means, however, be understood to propose. that 
the quantity of produce should be taken as the sole 
regulator of fluctuating rents, but merely to predict 
that it will at some future period become a more 
important element than price in determining rent. 
The adjustment we propose is the number of bushels 
of grain forming the grain-rent, convertible into 
money by the judicial average price that should bear 
a constant proportion to the number of bushels per 
acre of the same sort of grain grown in the same 
year throughout the county. Such an adjustment 
of rents would have afforded an inexpressible con- 
solation to farmers under the sad prospect forced 
upon them by the destructive rains in the month of 
July last. Then every farmer had the prospect of 
his income from the crop on the ground being much 
reduced; but tenants bound to pay in rent the price 
of fixed quantities of grain then felt the additional 
grievance of having their rents increased nearly in 
proportion to the destruction of their crops. They, 
we conceive, would have sufficient cause to deplore 
such a destruction, even were their rents slightly 
diminished on account of it. By the adjustment we 
have proposed, this diminution could only be slight; 
for the price of grain must always be increased by a 
failure of the crops, though by importation from 
abroad the increase may be prevented, being propor- 
tionate to the deficiency in the quantity produced. 
Thus landlords can have no ground of complaint, 
since their share of the calamity would be small. 
‘‘ The arrangement proposed would give the pro- 
prietor and tenant their just. shares of profit and loss 
from the general improvement of agriculture, with- 
out influencing the gain or loss due to the tenant for 
his peculiarly good or bad management. When his 
land is let on a constant money-rent, the proprietor’s 
only benefit from the increased produce of the coun- 
try, on account of general improvements in agricul- 
ture, depends on the frequent disproportionate in- 
crease in the value of money. When, on the other 
hand, it is let on the present mode of grain-rent, an 
increased produce by such means is rather a loss than 
a gain to him, by its reducing the price of grain 
more than that of other commodities, and conse- 
quently lowering his rental more than it raises the 
value of money. We see no reason why the pro- 
prietor should not share with his tenant in the varia- 
Jesh MINE eRe UAC Na Suse ala dol SU 
