rially. Suppose we say,
not for absolute exactness, but for the sake of present contrast, that
capital well invested in business brings in ten per cent. The same capital
invested in land brings in, say, three per cent. nominally; but is it as
much in reality if you deduct those expensive improvements upon which
tenants insist nowadays, and the five per cents, and ten per cents,
allowed off the rent in bad years? At all events, it is certain that
landlords, as a class, are investing more and more every year in business,
which looks as if they did not consider land itself sufficiently
remunerative. In addition, when you have bought your estate, should you
subsequently wish to realise, the difficulties and delays are very trying.
You cannot go down to your broker and say, 'Sell me a thousand acres this
morning.' Capital in land is locked up.

Mr. ----, having been trained in traditions of ready money and easy
transfer, does not like this prospect. But as the tenant of a great farm
it is quite another matter. The larger part of his capital still remains
in the 'firm,' and earns him a handsome income. That which is invested in
stock, cattle, horses, implements, &c., is in a sense readily negotiable
if ever he should desire to leave. Instead of having to pet and pamper
discontented tenants, his landlord has to pet and pamper him. He has, in
fact, got the upper hand. There are plenty of landlords who would be only
too glad to get the rich Mr. ---- to manure and deep-plough their lands;
but there are comparatively few Mr. ----'s whose rent-day payments can be
implicitly relied on. Mr. ----, in point of fact, gets all the sweets of
the country gentleman's life, and leaves the owner all the sour. He has no
heir presumptive to check his proceedings; no law of entail to restrain
him; no old settlements to bind him hand and foot; none of those hundred
and one family interests to consult which accumulate in the course of
years around a landed estate, and so seriously curtail the freedom of the
man in possession, the head of the family. So far as liberty and financial
considerations go, he is much better off than his landlord, who perhaps
has a title.

Though he knows nothing of farming, he has the family instinct of accounts
and figures; he audits the balance-sheets and books of his bailiff
personally, and is not easily cheated. Small peculations of course go on,
but nothing serious. The farms pay their way, and contribute a trifle