106
THE EFFECTS OF
CHAP. XX.
less necessary, because in a work lately issued fromthe Cambridge university press more facts arecollected on the subject of rent than are to befound in any other work, accompanied with themost judicious observations on the advantages anddisadvantages of the different modes by which itis extracted 1 .
The cultivators in this country, at the periodwe are considering, were under contracts withthe proprietors of the soil to pay certain smallannual money payments. Those payments werefixed at the commencement of the term forwhich the leases were granted, the greater partof which were for ninety-nine years, but deter-minable after the death of three lives. A finewas almost universally paid on the granting thelease, and as each life dropped a fine was paid fora renewal.
It seems almost certain that the fine as well asthe annual, or, as it was commonly called, “ thelord’s rent,” was fixed with reference to the rateof prices which the produce bore at the commence-ment of the term. The first term when a renewalwould become necessary, on the death of the firstof the three lives, would be about thirty-threeyears. A fine would then be demandable for a new