Writing is necessary to constitute a lease, although possession during the part that may remain over of a year begun, may be held as a right from sufferance and ac quiescence in its commencement. The proper form of the written agricultural lease has been an object of much atten tion by conveyancers, and there is a con siderable degree of uniformity iu the prac tice throughout the country. There are usually nineteen clauses, as follow :-1. The Description of Parties. 2. The De stination, in which the extent to which as signing or subletting is permitted or pro hibited is set forth, and provision is made for the arrangements in case of the tenant's decease. 3. Clause of Posses sion, describing the subject let. 4.
Dt.ration. 5. Reservation, if there be any rights such as that to minerals or game reserved by the landlord. 6. Land lord's Meliorations, containing such ob ligations to improve the subject as the landlord undertakes. 7. Warrandice or guarantee of the title given to the tenant 8. Rent-clause. 9. Tenants Meliora tions, setting forth such improvements as the tenant undertakes. 10. Preservation, containing the tenant's obligation to keep the building, fences, &c., in repair. 11. Insurance, in which the tenant becomes bound to insure the buildings, crops, &c., against fire. 12. Thirlage. This clause, a remnant of feudal usages, is now com paratively rare—it binds the tenant to grind his corn at the mill of the over-lord. 13. Management. 14. Bankruptcy, pro viding in general for the landlord's re sumption of the lease if the tenant become bankrupt. 15. Removal, by which the tenant engages to evacuate the premises at the prescribed term. 16. Reference, providing for arbitration of disputes. 17. Mutual Performance, indicating pe nalties to be paid by the party failing. 18. Registration for execution [Rzoisma TioN]. 19. Testing clause, containing the formalities of the execution of the contract. Of these, the clause of manage ment is the most important. It is now much doubted how far it is good policy to bind the tenant to the observance of a particular course of agriculture. In the highly improved districts, where very scientific farming is expected, the tenant is generally more capable than the land lord of estimating the value of improved systems. Agricultural chemistry, and other means of increasing the produce of the soil, are at present the object of much attention among farmers, and where tenants cannot alter a fixed routine with out the risk of a law-suit, an embargo is laid on the practical application of im provements. The landlord's chief in terest in any routine being followed, is simply the preservation of the land from deterioration towards the conclusion of the lease. On the subject of the usual
provisions for management, Mr. Hunter says, " In those districts where agriculture is best understood, the following are the ordinary rules of management during the currency of the lease :-1. White corn crops ripening their seeds shall never be taken from the same land in immediate succession. 2. A certain proportion shall be under turnips or plain fallow every year, and be sown to grass with the first corn crop after turnips or fallow. 3. No farm-yard dung or putrescent manure made from the produce of the farm, nor straw nor hay made from the natural herbage shall ever be carried off the farm. It is sometimes added, that no turnips or rape or hay of any kind shall ever be removed or sold. And upon weak soils, it is sometimes required that no less than half of the turnips shall be eaten by sheep on the ground where they grow. 4. If the soil is not such as to admit of being ploughed and cropped every year, it is stipulated that a certain part or proportion shall be always in grass, and that land laid down to grass shall be, before being broken up again, two or more years in pasture. 5. During the first five or six years of a lease, the conditions are sometimes more special, obliging the tenant to have so much more in fallow or turnips every year, and so much more in grass, and also to leave the farm in a particular shape, so as to admit of the incoming tenant pursuing a correct rotation of cropping from his very entry. Or 6. What is approved of by some agriculturists, it may be agreed that the lessee shall cultivate the lands accord ing to the rules of husbandry, but with the addition of specific regulations ap plicable to the four or five last years of the lease. 7. Adherence to the course prescribed may be enforced by con ditioning for payment of additional rent in the event of contravention, besides damages, and with a power to prevent further contravention, for which purpose power to make a summary judicial ap plication is occasionally taken. Or 8. Liberty may be given to the lessee to deviate from the prescribed course upon payment of an additional rent specified, which may be declared to be pactional and not penal, and not liable to judicial modification. 9. In some districts, though seldom in the most improved, there is occasionally a stipulation that the lessee shall himself reside upon and manage the farm."—i. 369-370. (A Trea tise on the Law of Landlord and Tenant, with an Appendix, containing Forms of Leases, by Robert Hunter, Esq., Advocate, 2 vols. 8vo., 1845.)