Several things are essential to the good cultivation of land, whether it is held by lease or is the property of the cultivator. These essentials are, a knoe ledge of the best modes of husbandry, adequate capital, and a market in which the farmer may freely buy and sell all that be wants. Now, in the present state of agriculture in this country, not one of these three conditions exists in the degree which is necessary to ensure good cultivation. The greater part of the land in England, as already observed, is cultivated under leases or a tenancy from year to year ; and the covenants in the leases are often such as to be an insuperable obstacle to good agriculture. The condition then of the tenant farmer, as determined by his lease, is that which we have to consider.
Many landholders have several objects in view in letting their lands besides the getting of rent. One of these objects is to main tain their political weight by cornmandiug the votes of their tenantry ; and this is mainly effected by not granting them leases of their lands for determinate periods, such as seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years ; but by making them very nearly tenants, at will, or liable to quit at six months notice. He who depends for his eubsistenco on having a piece of land to cultivate, out of which he may be turned on a short notice, will not be an independent voter. Nur can the landlord expect to have a good tenant who will improve his land and a political tool at the same time. The uncertainty of the tenure will prevent a man of skill and capital from investing his money upon so uncertain a return. There may be many eases in which the personal characte? of the land lord is a sufficient guarantee to the tenant that he will not be dis turbed in the possession of the land, even where he has uu proper lease, so long as lie cultivates it fairly and pays his rent.
But the most intelligent landlords themselves admit that the only proper tenure of the tenant is that of a lease fur a determinate period ; and it is on this condition alone, ea a general rale, that a landlord can get men of capital and skill to cultivate his land. It has been main tained by arguments which are unanswerable, that if lands were let to farmer tenante on leases for a determinate number of years, and on conditions which should not interfere with the land being cultivated in the best mode, there would be a great amount of iresh capital applied to the cultivation of the laud, with all the improvements of modern husbandry. It is contrary to experience and to all reason to suppose that a good farmer will apply his skill and capital to improve ment of another man's property, unless he has the security that he will be remunerated.
The improvements which would follow from a good system of leasing, would be the abolition of the evils which now exist iu cense quence of uncertain tenure and of bad leases. It is affirmed by the best authorities that the amount of capital which is now applied to the cultivation of the land in England is very inadequate, that a large part of the farmers have not sufficient capital to improve their lands, nor the necessary skill and enterprise ; and it is maintained that these evils are mainly owing to the want of a sufficient security of tenure or the want of a lease, or, where there is a lease, to the absurd restrictions with which many of them abound.
It has been said, and truly enough, that there is no advantage to the landlord in granting a lease to bad cultivators, and that there are many such. Such a lease would not indeed be any advantage to the farmer himself or the community in general ; but he who has land to let, and will let it on terms that are mutually profitable to the landlord and the tenant, will be much more likely to get a tenant of competent skill and capital, than he who gives the farmer an uncertain tenure or binds him in the fetters of a bad lease.
The preservation of the game and the enjoyment of the pleasures of the chase, or of the profits derived from the wild animals, is another object which some landlords secure by their lease with as much minuteness and strictness as they do their rent. [GeuE Laws.] Thus, in addition to getting a rent from his land, the landlord often wishes to command the votes of his tenant and secure his game. With reference to these objects and certain other imaginary advantages which he purposes to secure by directing the mode of cultivation, he has a lease drawn up with conditions, restrictions, penalties, add feudal services, which no care on the part of the farmer can prevent him from breaking in some particular, and which no man of capital, skill, and independent feeling would consent to sign.
But these farming leases are often copies of old leases, made in other days, and sre unsuited to the present state of agriculture. The things which they require not to be done and those which they require to be done, are often inconsistent with good agriculture, or, in other words, they prevent the land from yielding that amount of produce which it would yield under the Lest system, not only without thereby being impoverished, but with the certainty of permanent improvement. Ignorance on the side of the landlord of his true interest is one of the reasons why many of these absurd leases still exist.