12 Commercial Gardening 



compensation settled by arbitration soon after the passing of the 1896 Act, 

 in which the decisions unduly favoured the tenants' claim. 



A landlord ought not to be compelled, nor asked, to pay more for a 

 tenant's improvements than a sum which will represent a capitalization 

 of the annual rental value they have added to the holding, based upon 

 a calculation of the probable duration of that added value if the holding 

 were let again as a market garden. To this a tenant is morally and legally 

 entitled, and to nothing more. 



The mischief is that to assess such value requires a practical knowledge 

 of market gardening, which few valuers possess, and hence you have had 

 the edifying spectacle of a valuer who knows little about many of the 

 things he is " valuing ", on one side, asking a ridiculously exorbitant price, 

 and on the other side another valuer, knowing quite as much as his 

 " friend ", offering an absurdly low one, and the whole thing being referred 

 to a legal umpire more destitute of practical knowledge than either of 

 them. 



What wonder that some wicked people have hinted that the two 

 valuations have been added together and the mean taken, after sufficient 

 costs have been run up! 



What wonder, too, that there have been decisions with but a distant 

 relationship to the actual value of the things claimed for! 



Happily the 1908 Act simplifies the procedure on arbitration, which, 

 it may be hoped, will reduce the costs, and provides for the appointment 

 of an Arbitrator by the Board of Agriculture, on the application of either 

 party. It may be hoped that the Board will get some valuers conversant 

 with market gardening on their list. 



It is evident that the prospective market gardener must be prepared 

 to enter into some arrangement which, while protecting his own interests, 

 will get over the aversion of the landowner to the liability of a market- 

 garden tenancy. A considerable part of the landowner's objection has been 

 the uncertainty of the amount of the liability incurred. A liability of which 

 the maximum amount and the time of maturing is known can be provided 

 against, and some have found a way out of the deadlock by agreeing 

 that the amount of compensation shall not exceed an average of a certain 

 sum per acre. Provided the sum agreed upon is a reasonable one, such 

 agreement for compensation would come within the provisions of Clause 4 

 of the Act of 1908, and be perfectly regular. 



In Worcestershire what is called the " Evesham Custom " is largely 

 made use of, and has provided a satisfactory basis of many tenancies. 

 By this the outgoing tenant agrees to find a satisfactory incoming tenant 

 who will pay him his valuation. It is manifest that such an arrangement 

 will only work where it is the desire of the landlord to continue the 

 holding under market gardening; it will not be applicable to those many 

 holdings, near London especially, where at the conclusion of the tenancy 

 the land is to be handed over to the operations of the builder. In such 

 cases the rent appears to be the only area within which an arrangement 



