Landlords and tenants in Ireland

Preface

During the past winter, at the request of the proprietors of the ' Times,' I visited Ireland to inquire into the subjects of land tenure and estate management, and the condition of tenants and labourers. The results of my inquiry were published in the ' Times ' in a series of letters, which, by the courtesy of the proprietors, I am now enabled to reproduce with such additions and alterations as have seemed necessary.

FINLAY DUN.

Estate Offices, 2 Portland Place, London, W.

Aprils l88l«

Contents

I. Introductory

II. The Marquis of Downshire's Blessington Estates ,,..,,

III. The Duke of Leinster's Estates

Chapter I. Introductory

The ^landlords of Ireland are comparatively few in number, and many hold large estates. The tenants are numerous, their farms are small/ one-half the holdings are under fifteen acres. Nearly half the area of the island is owned by 750 proprietors, each enjoying upwards of 5,000 acres. Many large estates unfortunately illustrate the evils of subdivided tenancies too small to furnish decent subsistence for their holders. In the poor county of Mayo, for example, nine owners hold upwards of 20,000 acres, or together half a million acres, being considerably more than one-third of the county. At the opposite extremity of the social scale, with few intermediate connecting links, are half a million small occupiers, half of whom pay on an average 6/. of annual rent. The land map of Ireland, officially prepared for the Doomsday Book, and reproduced at the beginning of this volume, presents the number of owners of upwards of one acre in each

B

INTRODUCTORY.

county, the names of the landlords of the largest domains, with the number of statute acres which they hold in each county. The peasant and yeoman owners possessing from ten to 500 acres — a very important class, on whom should depend much of the agricultural prosperity and social stability of the country — are few and scattered. Although the land sales under the Church Act of 1869 have added about 6,000 new owners, and those under the Bright's clauses of the Land Act of 1870 have contributed 710, the total roll of peasant and yeoman proprietors hold amongst them only one-eighth of the area of their country. In England this useful class of owners hold one-third of the land. The subjoined tables from the Doomsday Book, and from returns presented to the House of Commons, August 10, 1876, furnish the number of owners in Ireland, classified according to their different acreages, with the area held by each class : —

Owners

Extent in statute acres

Less than r

acre

36.144

9.065

1 and under 10 acres

6,892

28,968

TO

7.746

195.525

■ 1 100 ,,

3-479

250. 147

7.989

1.955.536

,, 1,000 ,,

2,716

1,915,528

1,000

,, 2,003 ,,

1,803

2.514.743

2,000

,, 5,000 ,,

1,198

3,675,267

5,000

,, 10,000 ,,

3,154,628

10,000

2.478,493

20,000

,, 50,000 ,,

2.558.850

50,000

,, IOO.OOO ,,

1,023,677 upwards

397.079

68,711

20,157,511

Landlords, tenants, and labourers, it has hitherto been believed, have many interests in common. Recently, however, in various parts of Ireland their interests appear to

AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS.

have become seriously dislocated. They are disposed to array themselves in unfriendly antagonism. Capital and labour are unprofitably at variance. (Several untoward seasons, bad crops, and low prices of some articles of produce have caused much widespread agricultural distress.) As in Great Britain, many farmers have been entirely ruined. It is generally -believed that 140,000 tenants, or one-fifth of the whole number, in Ireland are bankrupt Many farms, in consequence, are worse cultivated or stocked than formerly ; profits become still further reduced ; the tenants' ability to pay rents and other dues is impaired. Credit, often too readily obtained in more prosperous time's, is shortened. Repayments of old obligations are insisted upon. Without money, without credit, stranded, as it were, and almost disheartened, many farmers and their friends anxiously inquire into the causes of these difficulties and disasters.

Many and varied are the causes propounded. With half the population of Ireland deriving their livelihood from the soil, and more than half her income drawn from land, without the extensive diversified industrial resources of England or Scotland, the recent agricultural depression has told very seriously throughout Ireland.^ Landlords are blamed for absenteeism, for neglecting their duties, foi allowing great portions of their estates to remain in unprofitable waste, for putting forth small effort to assist, guide, or elevate their tenants/ for charging more than Griffith's valuation. Relatively to their number, it may, however, fairly be said that there are in Ireland as many good and improving landlords as there are good and improving tenants. Occupiers are blamed for apathy, idleness, and

b2

INTRODUCTORY.

neglect of their opportunities. Many for years, with good security, have held useful land, which has not been drained, or has been tilled only in a very perfunctory manner. The State is blamed for supinely allowing large tracts of land in many parts of Ireland to remain in comparative waste, while a considerable proportion of the cultivated area is, moreover, very indifferently managed. Some of the legislative measures adopted for the relief of Irish agricultural distress have not worked as successfully as might have been anticipated. Not all the new landlords created under the Encumbered Estates Court have been improvements on those they superseded. The Land Act of 1870 has not fulfilled all the good expected from it. It has tended to paralyse landlords' improvements, and has not sufficiently encouraged or protected tenants' improvements. In harmony with Irish traditions it wisely recognises the possessory interest of the tenant. When paying less than 50/. of yearly rent, he is awarded compensation if he is wrongfully disturbed. To establish his claims he is, however, driven to appeal to a law court, to stand forth in antagonism to his landlord, and thus usually to destrov his chance of retaining his holding. Rather than thus run the risk of being removed, he submits to almost any advance of rent or to other arrangements detrimental to his interests. The Act is powerless even in Ulster to prevent excessive raising of rent, which, insisted on, either pauperises the tenant or practically evicts him. The fact that exorbitant advances of rent are sometimes made, and are possible, affords widespread material for agitation. Whilst granting compensation for the disturbance of tenants paying less than 50/. of annual rent, no protection is accorded to those above that

SHORTCOMINGS OF THE LAND ACT. 5

amount, who often bring to their vocation proportionately more capital and intelligence, who sometimes furnish the much-needed employment to the day-labourer and smaller tenant, and whose interests and improvements demand greater consideration and protection.

As in England, want of capital intelligently used is one chief cause of agricultural failure and distress. Nevertheless, neither landlords nor tenants take advantage of the liberally-provided facilities for borrowing money for building, draining, and other improvements. Tenants generally have been more indifferent than landlords in effecting such improvements ; they have grudged the percentage, or feared an increase of rent. They are too generally disposed to adjure the State for aid, and to depend too little on their own imperfectly-used resources. Owners and occupiers alike fail to realise that no legislation can be expected invariably to ensure the satisfactory conduct of such businesses as landowning or farming, which demand for their successful issue individual ability, enterprise, special knowledge, and adequate capital.

Notwithstanding recent Acts facilitating the transfer of land and its acquisition by the cultivator, and affording, as does the Land Act of 1870, more security for capital expended, especially by smaller tenants, and in spite of extended opportunities for obtaining money for improvements on moderate terms, a proportion of landowners in Ireland do not yet fulfil aright their important trust, and, by ignorance, neglect, or rapacity, bring down loud and indiscriminate anathemas on Irish landlords. It is somewhat difficult to estimate the proportion of those who thus abuse their position and make poor use of their heritag

INTRODUCTORY.

They certainly do not amount to ^Vtn of the 25,000 who now hold estates of ten acres and upwards. Being chiefly small holders, their maladministration probably does not extend over ^th part of the whole area. This is, however, too large an extent to be mismanaged ; it represents too large a measure of neglect or wrong ; but, like some other evils, it is more readily recognised than remedied. Blundering waste and injustice to the tenantry have been most frequent and serious in Munster and Connaught ; but, even with the protection of the Ulster custom, excessive and reiterated raising of rents has sometimes occasioned much dissatisfaction and has, naturally, pressed most heavily on smaller, poorer occupiers. Flagrant cases of unfair dealing have added to the widespread social and agrarian agitation.

On the many debatable land questions which at present distract Ireland some light may be thrown by a careful, unprejudiced survey of Irish estates and systems of land management. I therefore purpose to examine typical estates belonging to all sorts and conditions of men. I shall endeavour to describe several of the great properties held by noblemen and others whose titles date from past generations or centuries, entering into some details as to tenure, rents, agreements, improvements, and the mode of carrying them out and paying for them, making reference also to the condition both of the tenantry and the labourers.

On many Irish estates not only the cultivation of the soil but its more permanent equipments have been mainly effected by the tenant, sometimes holding under a long lease, more usually with a parole agreement running from year to year, with a six months' notice to quit, which by the

IMPROVEMENTS EFFECTED BY TENANTS. 7

Act of 1877 was extended to twelve months. On many estates the labour and outlay, usually of small occupiers, has gradually reclaimed the bog and reduced the stony mountain-side to some sort of cultivation. The landlord generally has contributed to these improvements much less than his compeer in England or Scotland would have done. Houses, buildings, fences, and drains, seldom so substantially or thoroughly made as in Great Britain, but often fairly answering their purposes, in many instances have also been the work of the tenants. In this way, as already indicated, as a matter of equity has grown the occupiers' recognised possessory interest. Hence results the hardship of arbitrary eviction. Hence, moreover, arises one of the several difficulties in determining the vexed question, what is a fair rent ?

In marked contrast to the general Irish practice, under which landlords delegate to middlemen or occupying tenants the substantial improvement of their property, are the estates which for generations have been systematically managed on what may be termed English principles, where permanent equipments have been chiefly effected or paid for by the landlord. On the best of these estates, pains have, moreover, been taken to roll into one convenientlysized farm several of the small, often scattered, pendicles, on whicl( even the most industrious thrifty tenant could scarcely earn a bare subsistence. )

The lands of the great public companies, which recently have been threatened with wholesale extinction, deserve investigation.

Unfortunately, there is no difficulty in finding numerous examples of estates held by absentees, often, also, without

INTRODUCTORY.

any responsible resident agent, where the receiving and paying of rent is the only bond of connexion between landlord and tenant, where the owner's apathy and neglect are often reproduced and intensified in the occupier. By a return published in 1871 there were 1,443 absentee landlords, possessing 3,205,000 acres, or 16 per cent, of the area of Ireland ; and 4,496 landowners who resided in Dublin, controlling 4,075,000 acres, or 20 per cent, of the total area. The average of the estates of these absentees was 2,220 acres.

More than half the area, especially of some of the western counties, is held by men who do not spend one week a year amongst their tenantry, who know nothing of their condition and wants, who contribute little or nothing to public or private charities. From one poor western county, where the tenants do not average 10/. of annual rent, nearly 100,000/. is every year carried out of the county by six of the principal absentee owners. This has continued even before recent troubles afforded some pretext for absenteeism. No wonder that at frequently recurring intervals the demand is made that absentees should be taxed !

Of a type almost more unsatisfactory are estates, fortunately seldom of large size, purchased often in the Encumbered Estates Courts, held frequently by non-residents, and illustrating all the evils of extravagant rents, insecurity of tenure, and ruthless appropriation of tenants' improvements. These are the cases that chiefly evoke the demand for State authority to fix fair rents, ensure some fixity of tenure, and afford security for payment of unexhausted improvements.

Facilities for the acquisition of land during the last

CONVERSION OF OCCUPIERS INTO OWNERS. 9

twenty-five years have, however, also introduced in many districts a most valuable race of landlords, who by precept and example have done much to improve the country. As strangers, they have not always been popular among the people; as improvers they have been regarded as disturbers, and, perhaps, as exterminators; they have, nevertheless, in many quarters demonstrated how much can be done by judicious outlay, not only in developing the resources of the land, but in finding the much-wanted regular employment for the labouring population, and in advancing their social condition.

By the Church Disestablishment Act of 1869, and the Irish Land Act of 1870, upwards of 6,000 occupiers have been converted into owners ; and it will be useful, not only in an agricultural, but also in a social, aspect, to ascertain how these new proprietors have battled with recent bad times. Most have continued regularly to meet their instalments towards the principal and interest of their loans. Many have, besides, obtained capital for improvements, and, with energy and ability, are making good use of their possessions. It becomes an important practical question, alike of social and agricultural import, whether extended facilities should not be given for the multiplication of these yeoman farmers.

Still another class of noteworthy holdings are met with, the properties of middlemen, sometimes held on leases for several lives, or for long periods, on which obviously there is limited inducement to expend much, where subletting and subdivision have sometimes been carried to a ruinous degree, where the cultivating tenant is sometimes separated from the owner of the fee-simple by three or four middlemen, where rents, consequently, are apt to be excessive, but io INTRODUCTORY.

where, curiously, the occupier clings to the spot of his birth or early location, almost with the same affectionate tenacity as he does under more auspicious circumstances.

The occupation, or ownership, of portions of land under five acres is greatly more common in Ireland than in any part of Great Britain. Notwithstanding evictions and consolidations, emigration, and the diversion of the surplus agricultural population to the limited amount of other available work, one-fifth of the holdings in Ireland, or 117,580, are still under five acres. These small folks mostly live in a state of chronic poverty, liable in a single bad season to drift helplessly into positive destitution, their lot lightened only by the fine climate, by their wonderful hardiness, and their natural good spirits. They are generally fonder of politics than of farming. The leaseholders and owners among them are seldom better off than the rackrenters, who hold sometimes precariously from year to year, and are usually experts in propounding very advanced views on land tenure.

Although there are at present loud complaints of insecurity of tenure, occupiers in Ireland have more fixity of tenure than is enjoyed by their fellows in England or Scotland. For generations, without lease, with a kind of patriarchal, feudal, traditional right, very generally respected, they remain for generations in undisturbed possession of their holdings. Indeed, excepting for accumulated arrears of rent, evictions are very uncommon. The Ulster custom, legalised by the Land Act of 1870, has given Irish tenants throughout most parts of the northern province a permanent interest in their holdings. But even in other parts of Ireland analogous usages have gradually been gaining ground.

GROWTH OF TENANT RIGHT.

In their anxiety to obtain the much coveted ' bit of land,' with few other occupations to turn to, several years' rent is constantly paid to the outgoing tenant by way of premium, or good-will for the possessory interest, and in addition to any charges for unexhausted improvements. This payment for tenant right is usually recognised and acquiesced in by the landlord, who generally secures therefrom the discharge of any arrears of rent.

Of late years rents have been widely characterised as 'exorbitant.' As in Great Britain they are irregular ; even on the same estate they are not always accurately graduated according to value ; they are usually highest on small estates, and those which have repeatedly changed owners ; in some districts they remain as they were thirty years ago ; they are moderate on many of the larger estates ; the small holdings are generally dearest. As elsewhere the worst land, proportionately to its producing capabilities, is most highly rented. Even by many intelligent tenants the economy of good buildings, roads, and markets, is not sufficiently appreciated, and allowed for in the rent. Throughout Ireland, during the last twenty years, rents have not risen in the same proportion they have done in Great Britain. The Income Tax assessments indicate that between 1857 and 1875 the gross annual value of the land of England increased 2 1 per cent. ; the increase in Scotland during the same period was 26 per cent. The returns from Ireland are not available for comparison previous to 1862; but between that period and 1875 the increase on the valuation of Irish land was only 6 per cent., or about one-third that of the sister country.

In the following letters a description will be given of land tenure and estate management, and of the various classes of owners and occupiers throughout different parts of Ireland. Such reports may prove useful in the present disturbed state of the country; may indicate where grievances and hardships really exist ; may mark the remedies which intelligent and energetic landlords, tenants, and even peasants are now employing for their own and their neighbours' welfare ; and, further, may foreshadow the direction and scope of future land legislation.

ESTATES IN WICKLOW AND KILDARE.

CHAPTER II. THE MARQUIS OF DOWNSHIRE's BLESSINGTON ESTATES

The Marquis of Downshire has an estate of over 17,000 acres in counties Wicklow and Kildare, eighteen miles south of Dublin, around the neat little village of Blessington. He owns, besides, estates in county Down, Antrim, and King's County, and also in Yorkshire and Berkshire. Fortunately for the tenantry and the country several former marquises have been men of kindly, liberal spirit, determined to improve their inheritance and elevate the people upon it. The fourth marquis, who died in 1868, is still spoken of with goodwill, is affectionately styled 'the big marquis,' and was great in heart and good works as well as in body. Many are the stories current of his benevolence, of his riding round his estate with a pile of garments for women and children attached to his saddle, and goodly supplies of notes in his pocket, cheering the hearts of the desolate and distressed with kindly greetings and good gifts. Nobility and landlordism were made popular not only at Blessington but in many other parts of Ireland by these good deeds of the big Marquis of Downshire. With more men of his sort, poverty, discontent, and disaster would have been less common than they now are in Ireland. Farmhouses and cottages w^re put in order, land was drained and reclaimed ; in 1 846-4 and in other bad years useful work was found for l4 THE DOWNSHIRE ESTATES.

the unemployed ; a capital supply of water was brought into the village ; planting, for shelter and effect, generally much neglected, was carried out.

The fruits of liberal management are very notable among the people themselves and in their holdings. The Protestant and Roman Catholic population agree most amicably; children of all denominations attend the same National Schools, in which pains are taken to have teachers of each creed. The people are industrious and thrifty, fairly tidy and cleanly, and above want. In the Blessington division of the Naas Union, out of a considerable population, only four old people are in the workhouse, and none receive out-door relief, which it must, however, be noted is granted very sparingly in Ireland. Instead of allowing the small tenants last spring to apply under Major Nolan's Act at their union for seed potatoes and oats, the Downshire trustees procured champion potatoes and black Tartarian oats, and distributed them where needful. Both potatoes and oats have produced admirable crops, amply testifying to the importance of more frequent change of seed.

The farms on the Blessington estate Vary in extent from plots under an acre to farms of 400 acres. Some small accommodation fields rent at 50^. an imperial acre; outlying hill-land, some of it 700 feet above sea-level, is only worth 6d. an acre. As occasion offered, small holdings have been thrown together, tenants being paid for improvements made ; nearness to Dublin has steadily absorbed surplus population. The holdings are now considerably larger than on most adjoining properties, either in Wicklow or Kildare. There are few leases or written agreements. Every confidence has been placed in the fair dealing of landlord and

SIR RICHARD GRIFFITH'S VALUATION. 15

agent. Several families have been in undisturbed possession for upwards of 200 years. Ejectments are unknown, except where the tenant had become notoriously dissipated or vicious, or where payment of rent was persistently refused for two or three years. Subdivision and subletting are not allowed.

Here, as elsewhere in Ireland, Sir Richard Griffith's valuation, made forty years ago, is not regarded as inviolable. As in most such valuations, the poorer lands are often too high; many of the surveys being undertaken in August— when, in high-lying districts, grass, and, indeed, all crops looked their best — brought out too favourable figures. Some of the better lands are, however, as much underestimated. The price of most descriptions of agricultural produce having increased 20 to 50 per cent, since Griffith's valuation was made, renders it inadmissible as a fair criterion of rent. Moreover, when the valuation was concluded, being for rating and not for rental purposes, a deduction was made all round of fully 20 per cent. Notwithstanding outlay on the part of the landlord, and better cultivation by tenants, the present rental is not 20 per cent, higher than that of fifty years ago. The average rent for land adjoining Blessington, which grows four to five quarters of oats, and twenty tons of swedes, or of grass which will dairy or grow good young stock, is about 255. a statute acre. The rental is generally 14 per cent, over Griffith's valuation. Its moderation is, however, attested by the keen competition for any vacant farm. Until the last two years, rents were always most punctually paid; even now the arrears do not exceed 10 per cent.; 10 per cent, was generally remitted from the year's rent of

1 6 THE DOWN SHI RE ESTATES.

1879; six months' grace is always given before the rent due is collected.

Rates are made on the Poor Law valuation, which is Sir Richard Griffith's valuation revised annually, with addition of new buildings and other improvements. The poor rate is is. id. in the pound; it has considerably increased during the last twenty years; one-half is paid by the landlord. The county cess, which goes for roads, bridges, &c, is is. Sd. per pound, has also somewhat increased, and is paid by the tenants. The tithe rent-charge, applotted by local valuers, is paid by the landlord.

Even in the best of times farmers generally have not made money unless by dealing or other business, but they have lived comfortably, brought up and placed out their families. Gradually the tillage area has diminished. The climate being so uncertain and the altitude great, oats are the only cereal cultivated. Labour is moderate in price, but not particularly good or reliable; most of the workpeople require a good deal of looking after; wages vary from js. to gs. a week, often with a cottage and garden rent free. Ploughmen and herds have 10s. to 14s.; harvest wages are 35-., sometimes 4s., a day. There are no home industries, no weaving as in old times; the women do a little knitting, but chiefly for their own families. Needle-making, introduced into Blessington some fifty years ago, soon languished. A steam tramway projected to run from Dublin will benefit the neighbourhood, but a narrow-gauge railway would probably be more generally serviceable and, in the long run, prove more economical.

On a large adjacent estate of the Marquis of Waterford are some extensive quarries, producing the beautiful Wick-

A KILDARE RENT AUDIT. 17

low granite, now carried over twenty miles by road to Dublin, at a cost of 10.J. to 125-. per ton. The facility and cheapness of carriage which will be afforded by the projected steam tramway should greatly increase this industry, from which, even under present circumstances, a large number of hands get employment — quarrymen at 125-. to 155. a week, and stone-cutters at 20^. to 30J.

Landlord and tenant in Ireland being at present often in antagonism, disputes as to rents being too common, tenants refusing settlement excepting on Griffith's or their own valuation, and using besides a new circulating medium with which to pay off unpopular landlords and agents, I availed myself with considerable curiosity of the invitation of Mr. William Owen, of Blessington, and his son, Mr. Arthur, to attend their rent audit on Miss Magan's Eagle Hill property, between the towns of Athy and Kildare, thirty-four miles from Dublin. The thirty tenants on this property entertain a friendly feeling towards their landlady and agent ; there was not one demurrer as to rent ; Sir Richard Griffith's well-known name was not once mentioned ; a 20 per cent, deduction made in a few cases was, however, very gratefully received ; the smaller tenants, who in spring had received seed potatoes and oats, to be paid for after harvest, were glad to have their obligation remitted; one widow who had lost her husband in July from ' the bronchitis on the chest,' pleaded for time, and was told not to vex herself, but make up something against the next settling six months hence ; one conscientious gentleman reminded the agent that he was making no charge for a portion of newlytaken-in land, but was courteously informed that he had better get it into more profitable form before rent could fairly

c

THE DOWNSHIRE ESTATES.

be charged upon it. Inquiry was repeatedly made whether any draining was requisite, and assurance given that any such essential improvement would be undertaken, not only for its own sake, but in order that no labourer willing to work should be out of employment during the dull winter months. Met in this spirit, the tenants are contented and fairly prosperous. With more energy they might do still better.

The estate, of 1,500 Irish acres, has been in the Magan family for a century and a half. Mrs. Magan, who died this year, like many Irish ladies, was herself a great agriculturist, and farmed about half her estates in four or five counties. Her daughter, the present proprietress, has the same fondness for farming, and has splendid flocks and herds roaming over the wide, rich pastures around her residence at Killyon Manor, in the county Meath. On this, the Kildare estate, the average rent per acre is about one guinea. The farms generally have been held upon long leases, some for three lives. The oldest tenant, whose memory goes back for sixty years, tells me that he does not remember an eviction. Several who left voluntarily have had compensation ; rates are advancing ; subletting and conacre are forbidden j but, in the event of any tenant desiring to give up, any respectable man nominated by him would be accepted, or, as has been done by Mrs. Magan even before the Land Act provisions became law, compensation would be paid to the out-going tenant for improvements made by him. About half the tenanted land is under tillage ; a sort of four-course rotation is generally pursued of oats, potatoes, and oats or barley sown with seeds, which are allowed to remain down for two and sometimes three years. No interference occurs as to cropping or sale of produce. Hay is worth 40^. to 50s. ;

PROFITABLE FARMING IN KILDARE. 19

oat straw about half that figure ; swedes, which are generally very good, sell at present at \os. per ton. Herdsmen have about 1 2 j-., ordinary labourers 9^. per week ; but if fed, as some are, by their employers, they get is. per day. The hours of labour extend from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., when the men return to their cottages on the farm or to the village. As in England, the younger men are not so steady, interested, or competent as the older. Alike to labourers and tenants permission is given to cut peat on the hundred acres of bog which flank the estate, at the rate of $s. per two perches, from which a good winter supply of peats is obtainable, worth is. 3d. to is. 6d. a standard, which is a pile 4 feet long, 4 feet deep, and 2 feet wide.

The drive from Blessington to Eagle Hill passes through an improved and well-farmed district, and over portions of the estates of Mr. John La Touche, of Harristown, and Major Borrowes, of Giltown. The latter gentleman has laid out his demesne land in admirable square fields, enclosed with capital stone walls and thorn fences, and on which are grazing superior shorthorns and a choice lot of Kerries. 1 he tillage and stock management evidence much skill, care, and enlightenment, and secure, I am assured, handsome returns. Throughout the remainder of his large estate, Major Borrowes has also carried his enterprising improvements; has built houses, farm premises, and cottages ; has done a considerable amount of draining and fencing ; and has placed his tenants, like himself, in the fair way of farming profitably.