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TENANT LEGISLATION.
617
prevent the outflow of the water. If a ditch should be necessary to furnish an
ontlet, and if the neighbours could not agree as to who should keep this ditch in
condition, the judge should decide the question according to what seemed best or
necessary. In the ordinance of 1879 a new principle was introduced, viz., that if any
one for the cultivation and drainage of his land wanted to ditch to a depth of 4 feet,
he shall not be hindered from doing so by the owners of land lying lower down.
On the contrary, the owners of land which is benefited by this drainage shall, in
proportion to the benefit derived, share in the cost of the draining, including a
compensation for the ground which is used in digging the ditch, penetrating, etc.
It is also prescribed that drainage shall not be prevented from running out into
t neighbour’s already existing ditch, but that the cost of the possible alteration of
the latter, necessitated by the new influx, and that of keeping the ditch in order,
shall be met in the same way as prescribed in the opening of a new ditch.
Much the same principles and prescriptions hold good in the question of
loitering the level of a lake or of tapping a lake; but public approval through
the Governor of the Län is in this case required. Anyone, however, who in such
a matter of drawing off water is not himself a petitioner and does not concur in
the petition, can have exemption from sharing in the cost of the undertaking if
he, within a year after the execution of it, renounces before the Governor the
benefit thereof. The expense incurred on account of his land shall be met by
ratting off from the improved land as much as corresponds to the value of the
improvement to him and adding it to that of the sharers in the enterprise.
Tenant Legislation.
The Tenant Legislation has the same origin as the Agricultural
Legislation. Prescriptions still in force and collected together in the
law of 1734 can in almost all their essentials, be traced, not only in
the laws of the realm laid down during the latter part of the
Middle Ages, but also in different provincial laws. There was
consequently nothing new that the law of 1734 introduced into our code.
All the more worthy of note is then that, however much the
agricultural conditions were changed during the time elapsed since 1734, the
tenant legislation itself did not undergo any essential alteration. If,
however, any change in its conditions is to be noticed, this depends upon
an altered way of viewing things, and not least that the relations
between lessors and tenants, which still as låte as 1734 were relations
as between master and dependent, have now become, if we except the
crofter-system (see p. 611), an entirely economical relation between two
contracting parties on the same footing.
No fixed form is prescribed for the agreement whereby one person lets to
another land for cultivation; so it can be either a verbal agreement or a written one,
with or without witnesses. To ensure safety, however, as against a third person,
the tenant is required to obtain registration, and this is granted by the court only
on the ground of a contract drawn up in writing and attested by witnesses. The
daration of the agreement may be either fixed or dependent on the giving of notice.
A fixed period may not extend over more than fifty years — in the case of
»lumber lease, only twenty years — and at the expiration of the time the lease shall
terminate without previous notice being given. If the agreement be made on the
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