which it is claimed that it applies. The onus of proof of a custom lies on the tenant.

3. Two of the earliest customs still met with are the "Custom of Pre-entry" and the "Custom of the Away-Going Crop." Under the former an in-coming tenant has the right to enter upon a certain proportion of the tillage land of the farm he is about to occupy, together with his servants and horses, by a specified date (usually in February), to till the land and sow his spring corn. Without it the in-coming tenant might lose his first season, or, alternatively, the out-going tenant would lose his last crop. Under the latter custom, the out-going tenant is allowed to come back on to the farm he has vacated, in order to gather in the crops sown by him which were not ready for harvest at the expiration of his tenancy.

4. These customs involving double occupation have obvious drawbacks, and in most places they have been superseded by others which secure to the out-going tenant monetary compensation for crops grown and acts of tillage performed by him in the ordinary course of good husbandry, the benefit of which will accrue to his successor. This principle, namely, payment to the out-goer, has been followed almost invariably in the case of all other matters to which customary compensation applies. These are far too numerous to mention, and the list grew steadily all through the first four-fifths of last century in proportion as the system of farming became complicated more and more by invention and discovery. Beginning with acts of tillage and half-grown crops, the out-going tenant's right to customary compensation was extended to manures bought and applied to the land, to the manurial residues from feeding stuffs bought and fed to stock on the farm, to the consumption of hay and straw, to the planting of fruit trees, and even to such matters as land drainage.

5. This was, briefly, the position up to the year 1875. The only rights that the out-going tenant had over his unexhausted improvements were secured to him by custom. The proof of the custom was on the tenant. Payments due under custom were payable by the landlord. The landlord could exclude the tenant from his customary rights by specific clauses in the contract of tenancy. Lastly, from its very nature customary compensation could never be adequate to meet the fair demands of an improving tenant. The whole position called for reform. The tenant's rights needed statutory recognition; they needed classification; they called for some machinery by which they could be recognised more speedliy than by the passage of time. In 1875, therefore, Parliament passed the first Agricultural Holdings Act. This Act was based to a large extent upon prevailing customs; but it took account also of new practices in farming which still awaited the recognition attaching to antiquity. In a schedule to the Act was given a list of the matters in respect of which compensation might be claimed by a leaving tenant, classified in three groups. The principle of the classification was, firstly, that there were certain things which a tenant might do which should only rank for compensation if the landlord had previously consented to their execution. These were mainly works of construction, and the more permanent farming improvements, such as planting orchards, which were costly in their nature, and which could not justly become a charge upon the landlord without his consent. Secondly, that there were certain other things in respect of which a tenant should be entitled to compensation only if he had given notice to his landlord of his intention to perform them. This class included what may be described as temporary improvements with a fairly long duration, such as the drainage of land, liming, marling, clay-burning, and so forth. Thirdly, there were further acts in respect of which the tenant could get compensation without needing the previous consent of the landlord, and without previous notice to him. This class related mainly to acts of cultivation and manuring such as were covered already in the more progressive districts by the custom of the country. In the case of every

improvement, in whatever class, the measure of the compensation payable was to be the estimated value to an in-coming tenant.

The Act of 1875 is of historical interest, as subsequent Acts have been based on it, but was itself never operative. Although some such measure was long overdue in the interests of good farming, landlords were not ready for it, and the Act was made permissive. Its operation could be excluded in writing; and throughout the country landlords contracted out of it immediately it became law.

6. The next Agricultural Holding Act of importance was that of 1883. This Act was, in the main, a re-enactment of that of 1875, with certain more or less minor modifications and a few additions, but with the important difference that it was compulsory and not permissive. The statutory recognition of the farmer's right to compensation for improvements dates, therefore, from the 1st January 1884. The principal alterations introduced by this Act are found in the second and third parts of the schedule to the Act. As regards these, all those matters of soil improvement, such as liming, claying, marling, chalking, boning, clay-burning, etc., which were included in the second part in the Act of 1875, and which required notice to the landlord before their execution, are removed to the third part, and may be performed by the tenant without notice, without forfeiture of the right to compensation for their unexhausted value on quitting.

A measure of very considerable importance was next passed, intended to meet the growing developments of the market-gardening and fruitgrowing industry. This was the Market Gardeners' Compensation Act, 1895. It applied only to agricultural holdings let as market gardens; and it extended the freedom of action of the tenant in the direction of allowing him to claim compensation for fruit trees and bushes and the more permanent vegetable crops planted by him without the landlord's consent being first obtained. It extended also the tenant's rights as to fixtures.

7. In 1900 another Agricultural Holdings Act was passed, an amending Act; but the new enactment is unimportant in the present connection, and the next step in the direction of progress is marked by the passing of the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1906. This was also an amending Act, and before it came into operation, it and the Acts of 1900, 1895 and 1883 were repealed by a consolidating Act, the Act of 1908. The new provisions in connection with tenant-right were important. They included (1) the right to compensation for damage done by game, the right to kill which was not vested in the tenant; (2) the right to compensation for disturbance of the tenant without good and sufficient cause, and for reasons inconsistent with good estate management; (3) the right to remove buildings and other fixtures erected by the tenant during his tenancy; (4) the right to compensation for repairs to the holding executed by the tenant upon the breach of a covenant by the landlord to repair; (5) the right to freedom of cropping and disposal of produce.

Nos. 1 and 2 can hardly be said ever to have been operative owing to the difficulty of proof. Nos. 3 and 4 are useful provisions for the tenant of a landlord unable or unwilling to finance his share in the agricultural partnership by keeping the permanent equipment in repair and up-to-date. No. 5 was a recognition of the fact that the landlord was no longer the pioneer in farming development, and that for him to attempt to prescribe the course of cropping and to impose restrictive covenants on the activities of the farmer might impede progress.

8. Matters continued thus until the passing of the Corn Production Act, 1917. This introduced drastic changes in the position both of landlord, tenant and worker, but it did not contribute much to the problem of how to secure the equitable treatment of the improving tenant. The Agriculture Act, 1920 followed. This was an amending Act in the

main; and the only provision contained in it which calls for notice here was the strengthening of the section of the Act of 1908 dealing with security of tenure. Steps were taken to make this really effective; and it is now practically impossible to turn a tenant out of his holding for any reason, except bad farming, without giving him the right to compensation for the cost of disturbance, amounting in any case to not less than one year's rent, and not more than two.

Most of the provisions of the Corn Production Act, 1917 and of the Agriculture Act, 1920 were repealed by the Corn Production Acts Repeal Act, 1921, but the provisions for compensation to the tenant for disturbance just referred to remain, together with other matters not directly affecting present considerations.

9. In 1923 was passed the Agricultural Holdings (Consolidation) Act, 1923, which consolidates the remaining parts of the Acts of 1908, 1920, 1921, and certain minor statutes.

This is a brief summary of the position of the occupier of an agricul tural holding as regards provision, by means of compensation on quitting, for the encouragement of good husbandry under the landlord-and-tenant system. It only remains to note that custom is still good unless excluded by the contract of tenancy or unless more favourable conditions are afforded by the Act, and that the contract of tenancy cannot exclude the Act unless it, too, offers more favourable terms to the tenant.

10. Compensation thus provided is probably adequate to the needs of the day, except as regards (1) the provision of premanent equipment for the farm and (2) certain types of specialist agriculture. The tenant is amply secured as regards the ordinary acts of husbandry. With reference to (1) there is no doubt that the poor return from capital invested in permanent equipment deters the landlord from expending money in this direction, and the right of the tenant to remove buildings and fixtures erected by himself during his tenancy does not always meet the difficulty. A tenant may be willing to put up a wind-engine to pump water required on a farm where bullock-feeding has given place to milkproduction, for he knows that he can remove it on quitting. But if the provisions of a water-supply for the cow-shed and cooling-room involves also the sinking of a well, and the purchase and laying of water pipes, as well as the erection of a wind-engine, he may hesitate to embark on the improvement, well knowing that all this part of his outlay will be lost, when he quits. Thus, the economic development of his farm is held up because the landlord cannot or will not lay out the needed capital, and because the tenant will forfeit the cost of the works if he executes them himself.

11. With reference to (2) the great development of specialist farming, particularly in the directions of fruit-growing and market-gardening, has been carried out under considerable disability in certain districts, owing to the inadequacy of the security offered to the tenant for capital invested by him. The tenant who wishes to plant an apple orchard must incur a heavy expenditure on trees and planting, and must wait for several years before the orchard gives him any return on it. Moreover, on quitting the holding he will leave behind him a very valuable asset in the shape of an established fruit plantation. Under the Act fruit-planting is included in Part I. of the Schedule, that is to say, compensation is only payable by the landlord if the tenant has received his written consent to the work, and the effect of this, in practice, has been that no farmer plants fruit at his own risk unless he has a reasonable chance of recovering his capital outlay out of profits during the duration of his tenancy. Even so, it is somewhat difficult to argue the case for the landlord's right to a reversionary bonus in the shape of an established orchard, worth perhaps, 50l. per acre, towards which he has contributed nothing.

12. The difficulty of the position has long been recognized. The case for the landlord is that it is not fair to make him liable for heavy sums

by way of compensation to an out-going tenant for expenditure over which he (the landlord) has no control; the case for the tenant and for the community is that individual interest should not be able to hold up the proper development of the land. The first attempt to meet the difficulty was by Statute, namely, by the Market Gardeners' Compensation Act, 1895, to which reference has been made already. This Act was a great advance. It safeguarded the market gardener forthwith; and in many cases the ordinary farm tenant was able to get the consent of his landlord to treat such and such a proportion of the farm as a “market garden" for the purposes of this Act. But in many more cases consent was refused altogether, or else the acreage scheduled as market garden was inadequate for the full development of fruit growing on the farm. The provisions of the Act are now incorporated in the general Act, and appeal from the landlord's refusal to the County Agricultural Committee is provided for. What difference this has made in the positions

cannot yet be determined.

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13. The other attempt to get round the difficulty applies to one locality only. In the Evesham district of Worcestershire farmers have succeeded in establishing a custom-the 'Evesham Custom "-which has the effect of law and which secures to them the benefits of their enterprise. In this district, proximity to good markets and good transport facilities have led to an enormous development of fruit-growing of all kinds. By the established local custom all trees, bushes, etc., are the property of the tenant; if he wishes to leave the holding he finds a new tenant who will pay him the compensation he requires, and the landlord is then bound to accept the new man, or else pay the out-goer himself. The system works admirably and is just as between landlord and tenant.

14. The question for consideration is whether the principle underlying the Evesham Custom could not be extended, with advantage, to all districts and to all types of farming. The object of compensation for improvements should be the encouragement of good and progressive farming. In those places, where intensive methods of agriculture are growing, much value reverts to the landlord which should be recoverable by the tenant, whilst at the same time the profitable development of land is hindered. It is true that the Evesham Custom takes a long step in the direction of "dual ownership," but the tendency of all modern agricultural legislation is to limit the discretion of the landlord, and to restrict more and more his freedom of action. Moreover, the custom has been proved workable over a large district; and it seems probable that if the landlord-tenant system of land tenure upon which British agriculture has been based is to persist, it can only be by removing any disability from which the occupier may suffer in his attempt to make the fullest use of his land.

PART III.

APPENDICES COMPRISING MEMORANDA AND STATISTICS FROM OFFICIAL AND OTHER SOURCES.

APPENDIX I.

SOME CONSIDERATIONS AFFECTING THE EXTENSION OF TILLAGE

FARMING.

By Sir THOMAS MIDDLETON, K.B.E., C.B., LL.D.

It should be noted that in my book on "Food Production in War,”* when I state that we have within the United Kingdom 6,000,000 acres under permanent grass that might be tilled, I am dealing with the use of land in an emergency. I do not wish it to be inferred that I would advocate the extension of tillage by some 6,000,000 acres at the present time. On the contrary, I think that so great an extension, unless very gradually carried out, would not only be undesirable but might prove disastrous to the industry. I cannot conceive of any conditions other than war dangers or extreme national poverty, that would bring 6,000,000 additional acres under the plough within the next fifty years.

The following figures show in millions of acres the increase secured in the United Kingdom as the result of the great effort made in 1918.

From these figures I infer that except under the pressure of war, or want, we are unlikely to secure more than 14,000,000 acres under crops other than grass in the near future.

In attempting to frame an answer to the question "What would be a desirable area"? three different sets of considerations must be kept in view.

(1) Safety in War Emergencies. From this point of view what the Nation must aim at is as large a total area of arable land as possible. It does not matter so much whether the land is under other crops than grass" or not. What is necessary is that the men, horses and implements for extended cultivation should be present; the extension is then relatively easy. Cf. the position of Scotland and England, Tables I, and XIX, "Food Production in War."

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The answer to what would be desirable?" in this case is that the greater the area under arable land the safer the Nation's food supply will be.

(2) The Social Aspect.-Personally I hold with those who think that there should be a great effort made to increase the rural population; but in this view I recognise that I am prejudiced by country up-bringing and long association with rural matters, and I know that many facts can be adduced to prove that the townsman is as good a citizen as the countryman. I will only say on the social aspect that from the point of view of those who agree with me, the main consideration is not merely the extension of arable land, but the extension of land annually under the plough. I discuss this subject in a Memorandum "Relation of Employment to Tillage," see Appendix II.

Publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1923, 10s. 6d.