In order to make a correct analysis of the subject, let us place ourselves in the position of a farmer who is offered the tenancy of a particular farm. It is necessary, further, to form a clear conception of the fact, and to bear it constantly in mind, that in all acts of selling or hiring, it is the purchaser or hirer, not the seller or the lender, who ultimately decides whether an exchange shall take place. Whatever be the price asked, be it high or be it low, the buyer by giving or refusing it decrees whether a commercial transaction shall be carried out. It is not the landlord but the tenant who will in the last resort determine what the rent shall be. The landlord may select amongst competing farmers the man who will pay the highest rent; still it will be the judgment of that tenant that will decide at last, not only what the amount of the rent shall be, but even whether the farm shall be let at all. The inquiry thus becomes, What are the thoughts, and what the feelings consequent on those thoughts, which traverse the mind of the farmer? He is seeking to borrow the use of land in order to engage in the agricultural business; his motive is profit, such an amount of profit as will, after repaying all his outlay of every kind, yield him the fitting reward for his efforts and his skill. His object is to gain a living out of his farm; and his calculations turn on the inquiry, on what terms of borrowing the use of the land he shall be able to obtain the ordinary profits of trade. Let us accompany him in these calculations.