Tenant (agriculture)

“ There, before enclosure, the tenants usually occupied yard-lands consisting of a homestead, 2 acres of meadow, 18 acres of arable, generally in eighteen or twenty strips, with a right on the common meadows, common fields and downs for 40 sheep, and as many cattle as the tenant could winter with the fodder he grew. The 40 sheep were kept by a common shepherd with the common herd, were taken every day to the downs and brought back every night to be folded on the arable fields, the rule being to fold 1,000 sheep on a 'tenantry' acre (three-quarters of a statute acre) every night. ”

“ One of the most important duties of the tenant was the 'averagium', or duty of carrying for the lord, especially necessary when his manors were often a long way apart. He would often have to carry corn to the nearest town for sale, the products of one manor to another, also to haul manure on to the demesne. If he owned neither horse nor ox, he would sometimes have to use his own back. ”

“ It is owing to forbearance in this and other matters that the relations between landlord and tenant are generally excellent. Where are the best farm buildings, where the best cottages, where does the owner carry on a home farm often for the assistance of the tenant by letting him have the use of entire horses, well-bred bulls, and rams, if not on the larger estates? The restrictions in leases, so much decried of late years, were nearly always in the interest of good farming, and their abolition will lead to the deterioration of many a holding. ”

“ Thus the tenant-farmer is willing to pay six, sometimes seven per cent. annually, for twenty years, for the increased capacity of production which drainage gives to the farm he cultivates. At the end of that period the Government is paid by the landlord, and the landlord by the tenant, and the tenant by his augmented crops for the whole original outlay upon the land. ”

“ The third type of tenant farming is where the tenant furnishes nothing but his labor and managerial ability, and receives a share of the sales, which may be one-third. This is rather an unusual type of tenancy, since, where the landlord furnishes all the capital, it is much more common to employ a farm manager at a monthly wage. ”

“ A great majority of the operatives come from the agricultural class known as tenant farmers; that is, men who farm the land for others, paying as rent a considerable portion of each year’s crop. The tenant system was adopted in the South during the period of disorder and chaotic ruin following the Civil War, when our old system of labor was dissolved and no better base remained on which to build anew the fabric of agricultural life. ”

“ There is a very great stop to agricultural improvements still to be considered. Most of the tenants hold their farm from year to year by a verbal bargain; and the stipulations of the very few written leases that are granted, consist chiefly in binding the tenant assiduously to attend his landlord’s fishing as long as he possesses his farm. ”

“ This, by itself alone, does not concern the tenant; but it does concern him greatly to learn the actual condition of the farm; and beyond doubt the landlord will be able to demand increased rent, and the tenant will be perfectly willing to pay it, to the extent that the outlay on draining and other improvements has augmented the actual produce of the farm. The tenant looks solely to the working power of the agricultural machine and the results which he may obtain from it ”

“ We suppose the owner must still have the option of keeping his property; and if so, as he will derive no profit from it in the shape of rent, he must either farm it himself, or act as labourer on wages under a farmer. We apprehend there can be little doubt as to the course he will take, when driven to such an extremity. As a body, tenant-farmers will cease to exist. ”

“ This mode of farming, which requires [Pg v] great confidence on one side, and skill and industry on the other, is not uncommon in America; the landlord usually finding all the necessary implements and stocking the farm, and the tenant, the requisite labour to manage the concern. ”

“ Good land in a rainy district will yield an inferior rent to land of the same quality under a more genial sun and a drier atmosphere. Then the water connected with the farm will come under examination. Will it be capable of creating water-meadows, which have such a lifting power [pg 635] for rent in many parts of England? The fertility, too, of the several fields of the farm will differ. The intelligent tenant will feel himself called upon to estimate what amount of crop, what quantity of food for cattle, with his skill and capital, he may reasonably expect to produce. ”

“ Much might be said concerning the use of the premises. If a farm is rented and the lease is silent on the matter, the law presumes that the tenant will use it in a proper and husbandlike manner, like other exemplary farmers in that vicinity. He must cultivate the soil properly, preserve the timber, consume the hay as fodder to the cattle, if such be the custom, and keep the buildings and fences in repair. Manure in the ordinary course of farming belongs to the farm. ”

“ A tenant of a farm must manage and cultivate it by the same rules of husbandry as are practised in his vicinity, and if his lease ends by any event that is uncertain and could neither have been foreseen nor foretold, he is entitled to the annual crop sowed or planted by him while he was in possession. ”

“ The minimum rental for every one thousand acres was ten shillings per annum, with the condition that every thousand acres must be stocked before the expiration of the second year with two head of large cattle or twenty sheep, the actual property of the lessee. Every tenant was required to despatch, yearly, a return of cattle, horses, and sheep depasturing on his land. ”

“ In the case of the farm, the landlord provides the farm with house, farm-buildings, gates, and other permanent improvements required to fit it for cultivation by the tenant, and the tenant pays rent for the privilege of cultivating the farm, receiving the proceeds of that cultivation. ”

“ There remain the following alternatives: land may be rented for a fixed sum of 66 money per acre, to be paid when the crops are sold, or for a fixed quantity of produce, so many bushels of corn or so many pounds of cotton being paid for every acre; or, more commonly, land may be rented on some form of share tenancy by which the risk as well as the profit is shared by both tenant and landowner. ”

“ A quarter of an acre of miserable boggy land is set apart for each tenant, and there is a large pool of stagnant water opposite each house. The tenant pays in advance three pounds and ten shillings yearly. The farmer sometimes makes the whole rent of his farm by what he receives from these people. ”

“ In a village with a thousand acres belonging to it, there might be 100 or even 200 tenants farming the land. Each petty villager would have his acre or half acre, or four, or five, or ten, or twenty acres, as the case might be. He holds this by a 'tenant right,' and cannot be dispossessed as long as he pays his rent regularly. ”

“ The first, and in many respects the most important, consequence of owning farms is the contentment that it has given to the people. Their minds are at ease. Their anxiety as to their future treatment from their landlord or his agent has vanished, and the misfortunes which often distressed them have disappeared. In their investigations the commissioners and the inspectors employed by them have met very few tenant purchasers who have any fault to find with the conditions under which they are now living. ”

“ Under the plan in which the tenant furnishes everything except the real estate, the tendency of the farm is apt to be downward both as to the improvements and the crop-producing power of the soil. The interests of the landlord and tenant are not mutual. This condition of tenancy leads to growing only those crops which can be readily sold from the farm and to frequent changes of the tenant, with its accompanying auction sales of property. In one region, where this system prevails, it has been facetiously remarked that each tenant has a sale every year to determine how much he is worth. ”

“ If we are to have the land cultivated here, the rents must not only be reduced to half the former price, but the tenant must be assisted to set the crop, and encouraged to introduce a proper method of cultivation, otherwise the land will be left idle, and the majority of the present occupiers will become inmates of the workhouse.'"—Times, Oct. ”

“ It is chiefly arable, there being only thirty-six acres of grass; and the soil is a deep peat, growing good wheat, and also oats, but not barley. The terms upon which the farm is let or leased are, it is said, a fixed rent, payable half-yearly. The tenant-right has been valued by parties mutually chosen, and three per cent. is to be charged on the amount, to be paid half-yearly with the rent. The horses, stock, and implements left upon the farm have also been valued by the same valuers, and three per cent. ”

“ The labourer would engage to clear a plot of land, to the extent of forty or fifty acres, at a certain number of acres each year, on condition that rations were supplied and other assistance given by the employer for the first year or two, and that the whole of the land, as fast as it was cleared and fenced (the employer finding posts and rails) should be cultivated by the tenant for his own profit for a fixed number of years, rent free. ”

“ As for the possession of the farm, which we are to suppose is a desirable thing for the tenant, he of the long lease is clearly most independent, since the other may be ejected at the end of each five years. ”

“ He accordingly subdivided the agricultural land into farms of 300 acres each, which he has let out to tenants on the co-operative system, the landlord taking a fourth share of the crops and the tenant the remainder. By this equitable system the tenants are not handicapped by having to make up arrears of rent after a bad season. It has also the effect of encouraging the farmer to make the best use of the land. ”

“ Unhappily, in spite of this tendency to the subdivision of the soil, the most usual system of working the land is still that of letting it at a fixed rent, or for a certain proportion of the yield in place of rent, or by a profit-sharing system, under which the tenant receives 50, 40, or 30 per cent, of the harvest. The large land-owners, who are the most numerous, prefer the former method, and often impose on the farmer the obligation of leaving a crop of lucerne on the land in the last year of the tenancy. ”

“ Every tenant may rear as many sheep, cattle, or horses, on the general scatthold attached to the town in which his farm lies as he can. There is no restriction on this head, whether he rent a large or a small farm. If there be no moss in the scatthold contiguous to his farm, the tenant must pay for the privilege to cut peat in some other common, and this payment is called <hogalif.> It seldom exceeds 3s. ”

“ The question for the young man to consider is not what effect the tenant system has upon the welfare of the nation or what political ills may be connected with farm mortgages, but how to make use of these necessary and beneficent agencies for the acquirement of a farm. A system of tenancy which leads to absent landlordism and a permanent tenant class is thoroughly vicious, while a practice which enables a man to become, within a reasonable period, a land-owning farmer is a thoroughly approvable and, indeed, necessary method of acquiring land. ”

“ I have advertised a second farm to be let there, and have had an application already. No wonder, for no rent is demanded for some years, and they have their proportion of the sheep which they keep besides. Think of having to give 4000 or 5000 acres for nothing, and to have to coax people to take it on the terms. I was looking this evening also at a snug little farm on my grant here, which I shall let to somebody in the nature of a cottier tenant, who will agree to work for me when I want him. There may be from six to ten acres of arable ground on it—I mean rich alluvial meadow ground. ”

“ Another good arrangement is tenant right, which consists in giving the tenant a right to claim the value of any unexhausted improvements, which he may have made in his farm, if he be turned out of it. A farmer can prove without difficulty how much he has spent in building barns, stables, piggeries, &c., in draining the lands, making roads and fences, or in putting lime and costly manures into the soil. Those who are experienced in farming can form a good judgment how long each improvement will continue profitable, so as to calculate how much the tenant loses if he be turned away. ”

“ And, on many estates—many of the largest estates in the country—it is a very common practice for the tenant to be required to draw all the materials for new buildings at his own cost. He has to do this very often, and in addition pay the rent-charge to redeem the actual expenditure. Now the horses and regular staff on a farm are generally just sufficient for the regular tillage operations of the farm, and if this haulage of material is undertaken, that work must suffer. ”

“ The more capable the tenant the more favorable the terms he may exact. Certain tenants are in demand and can have their choice of farms. A prosperous-looking man was pointed out recently as an example of a tenant capable of buying a farm in one of the most highly developed counties in the United States. It was stated that as a renter he could have his choice of any farm in the county, but that he did not have a dollar invested in farm land. ”