Sometimes the right to purchase the fee by the tenant upon terms was inserted in the leases. But it was the custom generally to sell the reversion of the fee to the tenant, whenever it was desired and the parties could agree upon the terms of the purchase. These leaseholds were devisable by will, and divisible, with the lord's assent, into parts in the lessee's lifetime. This made it easy for tenants to retain their farms in their families from father to son if they wished, or to divide up a

»Cniise Tit. VIII., cli. I. ? I., and Tit. XXVIII., ch. 1. 1 1. 2 Cruise Tit. XXVIII., cb. 1.

large farm into smaller ones, among several sons, or married daughters. But in all cases the consent in writing of the lord was necessary. And, as a rule, this was never withheld, when the subdivisions proposed were not made too small. In these divisions of a leasehold, the rent was arranged to be paid in one of two ways. Either the lord consented to take it in fixed parts from the holders of the subdivisions, or, which was most usual, it was agreed among the subtenants that some one of them should pay the entire rent under the whole lease to the lord, and be re-imbursed by each of them for his own part. The amounts for the different parts were apportioned among themselves in this case as they chose. When the lord accepted the rent in parts the apportionment was made by him, or his steward, with the tenants at the time such division into jiarts was agreed upon. In the IVIanor of Scarsdale, there were, within the personal knowledge of the writer, instances of tenants holding their|farms for four and five generations, and then purchasing the reversion of the fee from the lineal representatives of the Lord to whom the fee had descended.