But the addition to the establishment of a few appointments more or less was not the most serious charge which the Act of 1711 entailed. The Post Offices over a great part of England were then in farm. How, within the area over which these Post Offices extended, was the State to derive any benefit from the higher postage? The postage, whatever it might be, was under their leases secured to the farmers; and the farmers were under no obligation to pay any higher rent than that for which they had stipulated. This difficulty, which had without doubt been overlooked, took a most unexpected turn. The farmers had had only a short experience of the new rates before they found that these rates, far from bringing them a golden harvest, were fast contributing to their ruin; that they were in effect prohibitive rates; that the letters passing to and fro were getting fewer and fewer; and that the increase of charge by no means made up for the decrease in number. In short, the Crown or those who represented the Crown had taken for granted that under the new rates the returns would be relatively higher than under the old, whereas the farmers found to their cost that the returns were actually lower. Never, perhaps, has there been a more striking demonstration of the unwisdom of high rates of postage. In this dilemma the postmasters-general had recourse to an expedient which appears to have been considered satisfactory on both sides. They cancelled all the leases, nine in number,[41] and under the title of managers, appointed the farmers to superintend the Post Offices embraced within the area over which their farms extended. The managers who had heretofore been at the cost of the postmasters' salaries were to be relieved from this and all other payments; and as remuneration for their services they were to receive one-tenth part of the net produce derived from the postage. [41] The leases of seven out of the nine branches were cancelled in 1716; and those of the other two the postmasters-general expressed their intention of cancelling with as little delay as possible. And yet as regards one of the number, viz. the Chichester branch, there is reason to doubt whether it did not survive until the year 1769.