rents of the present day; so that, at first, one is inclined to question
the accuracy of those writers who denounce the avarice and rack-renting
propensities of the landlords of their time. But when we examine the
question more closely, we find so many circumstances to modify and even
to change our first views, that by degrees we arrive at the belief,
that the complaints made were substantially true. If the rents of those
times seem to us very low, we must remember that the land, for the most
part, was in a wretched condition; that the majority of farms had much
waste upon them, and that the portions tilled were not half tilled; so
that whilst the acreage was large, the productive portion of the land
was only a percentage of it. Then, agricultural skill was wanting; good
implements were wanting; capital was wanting; everything that could
improve the soft and make it productive, was wanting. These and many
other causes made rents that seem trifling to us, rack-rents to the
farmers who paid them. Swift had no doubt at all upon the matter, for he
says: "Another great calamity is the exorbitant raising of the rents of
lands. Upon the determination of all leases made before the year 1690, a
gentleman thinks that he has but indifferently improved his estate if he
has only doubled his rent-roll. Farms are screwed up to a rack-rent;
leases granted but for a small term of years; tenants tied down to hard
conditions, and discouraged from cultivating the lands they occupy to
the best advantage by the certainty they have of the rent being raised
on the expiration of their lease, proportionably to the improvements
they shall make."[46] As to the unlimited power of landlords, and its
tyrannical use, Arthur Young, writing in 1779, less than one hundred
years ago, says: "The age has improved so much in humanity, that even
the poor Irish have experienced its influence, and are every day treated
better and better; but still the remnant of the old manners, the
abominable distinction of religion, united with the oppressive conduct
of the little country gentlemen, or rather vermin, of the kingdom, who