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of LANCASHIRE. 25

tenants are thriving, and getting money. Mr. James Balmer, who accompanied the ſurveyor in this excurſion, and is a guad judge of cattle, declared he never ſaw, upon any one eſtate, ſo large a ſtock of cattle, uniformly good, being the Lancaſhire long horn, and what he termed the right ſort.

A certain method to excite improvement would be to let farms tó men of induſtry, ingenuity, and property, upon reaſon- able terms, and give leaſes for 21 years, free from arbitrary co- venants; without this nothing can excite a general and effedcual improvement. For ſuppoſe a farmer to lay out a few ſcore or hundred pounds upon his farm in uſeful improvements; his landlord ſees the advantage he is making, ſends a valuer to look over his farm; who, never conſidering(nor being told) what hé has done, lays a tax upon his induſtry, and makes him pay intereſt for his own money. Daily experience proves the truth of this aflertion, and will ever operate to the deſtruction of improvement, and of courſe to the great diſadvantage of the public.

Another improvement which here ſuggeſts itſelf, is by a re- viſal of the covenants in leaſes; and adapting them better to the preſent improved ſyſtem of agriculture; many of them at preſent militate againſt ſome approved pradices, nor has an ingenious cultivator ſcope to at, being reſtrained under cove- nant.‘There wants a ſpirit of liberality in the general tenor of eaſes. Inſtances might be produced to prove that if indulgencies were upon ſome occaſions granted, the tenant would be bene- fited, and the landlord enriched; and this only by a new mo- dellinz of the covenants, whereby the lands, if managed under 2 certain cultivation, muít return, at the expiration of the leaſe, into the hands of the poſleſſor, in a better ſtate than they were in at the beginning; and of courſe, would bring an advanced rental to the eſtate; ând again, the tenant, if induſtrious, might be enabled, by his advanced capital already gained-by his former leaſe, and the ſuperior ſtate in which he now finds the lands upon the ſame farm, to give the advanced rent to his landiord with greater profit to himſelf, than upon his former rent, under the impoveriſhed ſtate in which farms are generally entered Upon, A

E Leaſes