[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SrzerArou."]
Sin,—Perhaps the following instance of the unfitness of land for the purpose of clerical income may be interesting. Not long ago I had to take possession of a farm of £60 rent under a receiving order. It had been in the possession of the bankrupt, his father, and, I believe, his grandfather for about a century. It belonged to three different livings, all more than fifty miles distant, and all under £200 a year. The house and buildings and some of the land belonged to one, the rest of the land was divided between the other two. The rent was shared equally, and as far as I could ascertain, had been the same from time immemorial. Nothing in the shape of a landlord or a landlord's agent had been seen on the place, nor had any landlord's repairs ever been done, except when at intervals there had been a survey for dilapidation of the house and buildings. This farm is in the midst of game preserves, and the shooting was let by the tenant at a good rent. No doubt if it were in the market it would sell for far more than its value as an investment even now, and who can say what it might not have fetched thirty years ago? What it is let for now, I do not know; but I remember how grieved I felt to see the really fine old house and the farm in the state they were, and to think what good management might have made them; but what could each individual parson do with his £20 a year P—I am, Sir, &c., 0. R.
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