of 5400 sq. m., and occupies three-quarters of the department of Landes, half of that of Gironde, and some 175,000 acres of Lot-et-Garonne. The Landes, formerly a vast tract of moorland and marsh, now consist chiefly of fields and forests of pines. They form a plateau, shaped like a triangle, the base of which is the Atlantic coast while the apex is situated slightly west of Nérac (Lot-et-Garonne). Its limits are, on the S. the river Adour; on the E. the hills of Armagnac, Eauzan, Condomois, Agenais and Bazadais; and on the N.E. the Garonne, the hills of Médoc and the Gironde. The height of the plateau ranges in general from 130 to 260 ft.; the highest altitude (498 ft.) is found in the east near Baudignan (department of Landes), from which point there is a gradual slope towards north, south, east and west. The soil is naturally sterile. It is composed of fine sand resting on a subsoil of tufa (alios) impermeable by water; for three-quarters of the year, consequently, the waters, settling on the almost level surface and unable to filter through, used to transform the country into unwholesome swamps, which the Landesats could only traverse on stilts. About the middle of the 18th century an engineer, François Chambrelent, instituted a scheme of draining and planting to remedy these evils. As a result about 1600 m. of ditches have been dug which carry off superficial water either to streams or to the lakes which fringe the landes on the west, and over 1,600,000 acres have been planted with maritime pines and oaks. The coast, for a breadth of about 4 m., and over an area of about 225,000 acres, is bordered by dunes, in ranges parallel to the shore, and from 100 to 300 ft. in height. Driven by the west wind, which is most frequent in these parts, the dunes were slowly advancing year by year towards the east, burying the cultivated lands and even the houses. Nicolas Thomas Brémontier, towards the end of the 18th century, devised the plan of arresting this scourge by planting the dunes with maritime pines. Upwards of 210,000 acres have been thus treated. In the south-west, cork trees take the place of the pines. To prevent the formation of fresh dunes, a “dune littorale” has been formed by means of a palisade. This barrier, from 20 to 30 ft. high, presents an obstacle which the sand cannot cross. On the eastern side of the dunes is a series of lakes (Hourtin et Carcans, Lacanau, Cazau or Sanguinet, Biscarrosse, Aureilhan, St Julien, Léon and Soustons) separated from the sea by the heaping up of the sand. The salt water has escaped by defiltration, and they are now quite fresh. The Basin of Arcachon, which lies midway between the lakes of Lacanau and Cazau, still communicates with the ocean, the current of the Leyre which flows into it having sufficient force to keep a passage open.
LANDESHUT, a town in the Prussian province of Silesia, at
the north foot of the Riesengebirge, and on the river Bober,
65 m. S.W. of Breslau by rail. Pop. (1905) 9000. Its main
industries are flax-spinning, linen-weaving and manufactures
of cloth, shoes and beer. The town dates from the 13th century,
being originally a fortress built for protection against the
Bohemians. There the Prussians defeated the Austrians in
May 1745, and in June 1760 the Prussians were routed by a
greatly superior force of Austrians.
See Perschke, Beschreibung und Geschichte der Stadt Landeshut (Breslau, 1829).
LANDGRAVE (Ger. Landgraf, from Land, “a country” and Graf, “count” ), a German title of nobility surviving from the times of the Holy Roman Empire. It originally signified a count of more than usual power or dignity, and in some cases implied sovereignty. The title is now rare; it is borne by the former sovereign of Hesse-Homburg, now incorporated in Prussia, the heads of the various branches of the house of Hesse, and by a branch of the family of Fürstenberg. In other cases the title of landgrave is borne by German sovereigns as a subsidiary title; e.g. the grand-duke of Saxe-Weimar is landgrave of Thuringia.
LANDLORD AND TENANT. In Roman Law, the relationship
of landlord and tenant arose from the contract of letting and
hiring (locatio conductio), and existed also with special incidents,
under the forms of tenure known as emphyteusis—the long lease of
Roman law—and precarium, or tenancy at will (see Roman Law).
Law of England.—The law of England—and the laws of Scotland and Ireland agree with it on this point—recognizes no absolute private ownership of land. The absolute and ultimate owner of all land is the crown, and the highest interest that a subject can hold therein—viz. an estate in fee simple—is only a tenancy. But this aspect of the law, under which the landlord, other than the crown, is himself always a tenant, falls beyond the scope of the present article, which is restricted to those holdings that arise from the hiring and leasing of land.
The legal relationship of landlord and tenant is constituted by a lease, or an agreement for a lease, by assignment, by attornment and by estoppel. And first of a lease and an agreement for a lease. All kinds of interests and property, whether corporeal, such as lands or buildings, or Leases. incorporeal, such as rights of common or of way, may be let. The Benefices Act 1898, however, now prohibits the grant of a lease of an advowson. Titles of honour, offices of trust or relating to the administration of justice, and pensions granted by the crown for military services are also inalienable. Generally speaking, any person may grant or take a lease. But there are a number of common-law and statutory qualifications and exceptions. A lease by or to an infant is voidable at his option. But extensive powers of leasing the property of infants have been created by the Settled Estates Act 1877 and the Settled Land Act 1882. A person of unsound mind can grant or take a lease if he is capable of contracting. Leases may be made on behalf of lunatics subject to the jurisdiction in lunacy under the provisions of the Lunacy Act 1890 and the Settled Land Act 1882. A married woman can lease her “separate property” apart from or under the Married Women’s Property Acts, as if she were a single woman (feme sole). As regards other property, the concurrence of her husband is generally necessary. An alien was, at common law, incapable of being either a lessor or a lessee. But this disqualification is removed by the Naturalization Act 1870. The right to deal with the property of a convict while he is undergoing sentence (but not while he is out of prison on leave) is, by the Forfeiture Act 1870, vested in his administrator. Leases by or to corporations must be by deed under their common seal, and the leasing powers of ecclesiastical corporations in particular are subject to complicated statutory restrictions which cannot here be examined (see Phillimore, Eccl. Law, 2nd ed., p. 1281). Powers of granting building and other leases have been conferred by modern legislation on municipal corporations and other local authorities.
A person having an interest in land can, in general, create a valid interest only to the extent of that interest. Thus a tenant for years, or even from year to year only, may stand in his turn as landlord to another tenant. If he profess, however, to create a tenancy for a period longer than that to which his own interest extends, he does not thereby give to his tenant an interest available against the reversioner or remainder man. The subtenant’s interest will expire with the interest of the person who created it. But as between the subtenant and his immediate lessor the subtenancy will be good, and should the interest of the lessor become greater than it was when the subtenancy was created the subtenant will have the benefit of it. On his side, again, the subtenant, by accepting that position, is estopped from denying that his lessor’s title (whatever it be) is good. There are also special rules of law with reference to leases by persons having only a limited interest in the property leased, e.g. a tenant for life under the Settled Land Acts, or a mortgagor or mortgagee.
The Letting.—To constitute the relationship of landlord and tenant in the mode under consideration, it is necessary not only that there should be parties capable of entering into the contract, but that there should be a letting, as distinct from a mere agreement to let, and that the right conveyed should be a right to the exclusive possession of the subject of the letting and not a simple licence to use it. Whether a particular instrument is a lease, or an agreement for a lease, or a bare licence, is a question the answer to which depends to a large extent on the circumstances of individual cases; and the only general rule
