gantly
wasted. Buildings inevitably decay and they may be destroyed by fire
or storm. Orchards may be overturned by a cyclone or be destroyed by
blight or by the thousand enemies of the various varieties of fruit
trees. The land may be injured by washing that may require years to
repair. A single storm has destroyed fields in this way that never can
be restored. Noxious weeds take possession of land that can only be
eradicated by infinite pains. In this state certain weeds are
declared outlaws and must be destroyed by the farmer for the
protection of his neighbors. The farmer in this locality must have an
alert eye for Canada thistles and oxeye daisy. It often causes more
labor to eradicate them than the land is worth on which they are
growing.

If the annual renter was required to give bond for the return of the
farm unimpaired, returning that which the crops and time must consume
and destroy, taking all risks of every character upon himself, a
thoughtful man, though poor and needing the opportunity, would
hesitate. It might involve him in an obligation he could not discharge
in his whole life through conditions and providences over which he has
no control.

Practically in this country the owner renting a farm from year to year
does consume it. It begins at once to decline in fertility, the
improvements begin to fall into decay, weeds take possession, washes
occur and are not repaired, and in a few years the half of the value
is gone. The owner is fortunate if he has received in rentals
sufficient to restore its former value.

Under a system of perpetual tenantry the case is different. If the
fertility declines it is the tenant's loss. The improvements are his
and may be sold as one could sell ordinary farm tools, but not to be
removed. If they are impaired or destroyed it does not affect the
annual rental.

The landed proprietor in city or country, who has permanent tenants,
who are required to make every improvement and keep up perfectly the
fertility, and who pay an annual rental, is in the same class as those
who are receiving annual interest. The landlord practically holds a
perpetual mortgage, and the rental is the interest or increase exacted
generation after generation.

The debtor working under a mortgage is cheered by the hope that he may
be able, some day, to lift it, but the perpetual tenant on entailed
lands knows that he is doomed to hopeless tenantry. He can never own
the land and he is in the po