RENT. 
gate advance or retrogression in prices, or upon 
any great aggregate change in the relative values 
of labour and produce, during any one septennial 
period of a lease as compared to any other sep- 
tennial period.—A third contrivance is to fix a 
maximum and minimum price for the particular 
grain, whether wheat or oats or barley, or two 
or all of them, by which the amount of rent is 
determined ; and this so operates that the tenant 
pays no rent for any price above the maximum, 
and the landlord sustains no deduction for any 
price below the minimum.—But all these con- 
trivances, as well as modifications of them, are 
mere checks, and take for granted a radical de- 
ficiency in the method of calculating the fluctu- 
ating rent, and are themselves subject, though 
in a much less degree, to the very same kind of 
irregular tendencies which they are designed to 
control. An incomparably better method is to 
calculate on such comprehensive and searching 
principles as shall make the fluctuating rent 
always coincide with the natural or equitable 
rent, or as shall cause it to vibrate in perfect 
accordance with the aggregate surplus produc- 
tiveness of the farm ; and this would, no doubt, 
have been everywhere adopted from the begin- 
- ning, if the requisite principles for truly deter- 
mining the rent could have been found,—and 
will readily be adopted still if the principles can 
now be satisfactorily made out. We therefore 
gladly transfer to our pages what we think an 
important approximation to them, in an able 
article of the Journal of Agriculture, published 
in January, 1846 :— 
‘‘It is clear that either acreable quantity of pro- 
duce, or price of produce, or both together, are the 
facts to be taken as the regulators of the fluctuations 
of rent. We fix upon these, because, among other 
reasons, the expense of cultivation and the profit due 
to the tenant, though equally important with these 
in determining rent, are subject to much smaller and 
less sudden fluctuations, so that their influence can 
be more easily estimated beforehand. Before dis- 
cussing, however, whether both these facts regarding 
produce (viz., acreable quantity and price) should 
form the basis of fluctuating rents, several interme- 
diate inquiries suggest themselves. 
“* Of these the first is—Can we carry the principle 
of fluctuation so far into practice as to make the 
portion of the rent fluctuate which is dependant upon 
animal as well as that which is dependant on vege- 
table produce? ‘The entire rent of a farm is some- 
times regulated by grain, on the plea that the price 
of stock usually fluctuates in aecordance with that 
of grain. A correspondence, more or less close, be- 
tween the two may, no doubt, be observed over an 
average of several years, yet there is often, perhaps 
generally, such a discrepancy between their fluctu- 
ations In one or two seasons, as would render a rent 
calculated from the one a very false representative 
| of that naturally payable from the other. The rent 
}| payable from stock, therefore, ought not to be regu- 
lated by grain. The regulation either from the value 
of stock or from the aereable value of the crops 
which produce the grain, is evidently the natural 
expedient. The former of these, for many reasons, 
would be extremely difficult to determine satisfacto- 
rily. One of the most obvious reasons is the uni- 
versal practice of selling cattle by dead weight, 
39 || 
which is estimated merely by the eye. Then there 
are so many different breeds of cattle brought into 
the market, and in so very different stages of ripe- 
ness, that it would be difficult to fix their average 
value. Still it seems possible to estimate judicially 
an average on the price of stock sold in the principal 
markets, and the average of such markets as Smith- 
field would form a good eriterion of the price of fat 
stock. But we must here apply by anticipation to 
stock-rents, a principle which we shall afterwards 
expound as a fundamental one of all fluctuating rents. 
By this principle we conclude that, if such rents are 
to fluctuate, it ought not so with the price of stock 
merely, but also with the quantity produced. The 
average acreable value of stock-feeding crops is, 
therefore, the fact, rather than the average price per 
stone of beef, mutton, or wool, which ought to be 
determined to regulate fluctuating rent payable from 
stock. Turnips, grass, and other stock - feeding 
crops being often sold by the acre, we see no im- 
possibility in determining their acreable value in a 
similar way as grain-crops. But as we consider the 
application of the above principle to the rent from 
grain of the most importance, and there is, as yet, 
little prospect of that being effected, we need not 
here press the further extension of the principle. 
We therefore conclude that there is no immediate 
prospect of making the portion of rent dependant on 
animal produce fluctuate on a proper principle. 
‘‘ This being the case, our next inquiry is—How 
ought the rent, payable from stock, the constant 
portion, to be proportioned to the whole rent? This 
depends on the rotation of cropping followed, as it 
regulates the proportion of income derived from 
stock; but even with a knowledge of the rotation, 
itis exceedingly difficult to determine this point. A 
perfect separation, indeed, of the two sources of rent 
is impossible, even by inspection of the most ae- 
curately kept accounts. This arises from a great 
part of the produce of one source being made to pro- 
mote that of the other without a valuation being 
possible; and besides the. difficulty of estimating 
accurately the value of straw, dung, &c., thus passing 
from one member of the rotation to another, it is 
still more impossible to say exactly what proportion 
of the expense of labour ought to be charged against 
each. We are inclined to think, however, that the 
benefits mutually given and received by the grain 
and stock-feeding crops, ought, under proper culti- 
vation, to be pretty nearly balanced, and that the 
share of the expense which ought to be charged 
against each is nearly in proportion to the gross re- 
turn yielded by each. On this supposition, the share 
of the rent determined from the average value of 
stock, (or fixed at a sum of money, if no such value 
has been judicially determined, ) and that from grain, 
ought apparently to be in proportion to the gross re- 
turn from sales of stock and of grain. This conclu- 
sion, however, must be modified by the consideration 
that the money obtained for stock is the return from 
a proportionally larger eapital than that obtained 
from grain, and therefore its proportion for rent 
ought to be less. On this aceount, in place of taking 
the gross return from sales of stock, the value that 
would be obtained by selling the stock-feeding crops 
to be eaten on the premises ought to determine their 
portion of the rent. This mode would have the ad- 
vantage of being a simpler guide than the value of 
the stock sold in any year, because that seldom cor- 
responds exactly with the money received for them. 
In making an offer, therefore, of a rent partly con- 
stant and partly fluctuating, for a farm intended to 
be cultivated on a certain rotation, an estimate would 
first require to be made of the average value in sev- 
eral previous years of its grain and stock-feeding 
crops. The average sum thus naturally payable out 
of these taken together would then fall to be com- 
