io Commercial Gardening 



Act of 1883 where they required the written consent of the landlord to 

 their execution before the tenant became entitled to compensation on 

 quitting his holding in respect of them to Schedule III, where neither 

 the consent of the landlord nor notice to the landlord is necessary. The 

 improvements referred to are: 



1. Planting of standard or other fruit trees permanently set out. 



2. Planting of fruit bushes permanently set out. 



3. Planting of Strawberry plants. 



4. Planting of Asparagus and other vegetable crops. 



5. Erection or enlargement of buildings for the purposes of the trade 



or business of a market gardener. 



It is perfectly clear that the tenant of a holding which on 1 January, 

 1896, with the landlord's tacit consent, was being cultivated as a market 

 garden, was free, without any hindrance on the part of his landlord, to 

 make any of the improvements enumerated above, and to claim com- 

 pensation for them. To any layman reading the clause it would also 

 seem clear that in the case of a holding where any of the above improve- 

 ments had already been executed previous to 1 January, 1896, and the 

 landlord had not objected to them in writing previous to their execution, 

 then at the expiration of the tenancy the Act entitled the tenant to 

 compensation for them. For some time after the passing of the Act the 

 clause was so understood, and compensations by virtue of it paid; but 

 someone in Scotland took the view that the provision was not retrospective, 

 and the question was fought, and taken from court to court, until ultimate 

 wisdom in the House of Lords decided that the Act had no retrospective 

 action, and applied only to improvements effected after its passing into 

 law. 



In 1908 an Act was passed consolidating the Agricultural Holdings 

 Acts, and the Market Gardeners' Compensation Act was incorporated with 

 it. This Act came into operation on 1 January, 1909, and remains to-day 

 the statute upon the subject. The compensation clause of the Market 

 Gardeners' Compensation Act appears in it with some verbal alterations. 

 The first of such alterations seems designed to make it clear that the 

 improvements for which a claim to compensation is established are those 

 set out in the third schedule ; the second is designed to meet the retro- 

 spective difficulty, and sets out that the compensation payable shall include 

 improvements executed before as well as improvements executed after 

 1 January, 1896. It remains to be seen whether this has made the way 

 strait and narrow enough to keep out the coach and four of the courts. 

 The last alteration, whether so designed or not, seems to deprive the yearly 

 tenant of any of the retrospective benefits of the Act. 



A very important case is that of Eedwell v. Flint, which has been 

 decided in the Court of Appeal. This was a case which came up from 

 the County Court of Canterbury. An umpire called in by two valuers, 

 who could not agree upon a market-garden tenant's claim for compensa- 



