decapitated the reptiles with their hoes, and afterwards hung them all
up--tied together by the tail--to a bough. The bunch of headless snakes
hangs there still, swinging to and fro as the wind plays through the oak.
Vermin, too, revel in weeds, which encourage the mice and rats, and are,
perhaps, quite as much a cause of their increase as any acts of the
gamekeeper.

Farmer Smith a few years since was very anxious for the renewal of his
lease, just as those about to enter on tenancies desired leases above
everything. All the agricultural world agreed that a lease was the best
thing possible--the clubs discussed it, the papers preached it. It was a
safeguard; it allowed the tenant to develop his energies, and to put his
capital into the soil without fear. He had no dread of being turned out
before he could get it back. Nothing like a lease--the certain
preventative of all agricultural ills. There was, to appearance, a great
deal of truth in these arguments, which in their day made much impression,
and caused a movement in that direction. Who could foresee that in a few
short years men would be eager to get rid of their leases on any terms?
Yet such was the fact. The very men who had longed so eagerly for the
blessing of security of tenure found it the worst thing possible for their
interest.

Mr. Smith got his lease, and paid for it tolerably stiffly, for at that
period all agricultural prices were inflated--from the price of a lease to
that of a calf. He covenanted to pay a certain fixed rental for so many
acres of arable and a small proportion of grass for a fixed time. He
covenanted to cultivate the soil by a fixed rotation; not to sow this nor
that, nor to be guided by the change of the markets, or the character of
the seasons, or the appearance of powerful foreign competitors. There was
the parchment prepared with all the niceties of wording that so many