376 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



The first evidence of this was our laborious attempt to 

 provide statutory remedies for the tenant securing — though 

 not fixity of tenure, as in Ireland — at any rate, when dis- 

 possessed, equitable compensation for the improvements 

 which he may have effected with his own money, his skill, 

 and his labour. The mere fact that the Acts attempting 

 to accomplish this have had to be so often amended shows 

 how indifferently we have succeeded in solving this problem 

 and how difficult in truth it is to remedy what is amiss by 

 such means. And, after all, compensation is only compen- 

 sation. It may be insufficient. In the best case it is a 

 matter of arrangement, it may be of arbitration. Often 

 enough it has to be preceded by litigation, which eats into 

 the value ultimately adjudged, thereby diminishing it. And, 

 which is worse, often enough it acts as a distinct deterrent 

 to the effecting of improvements, since there is no telling 

 which way the judgment may go. And it is doubtful 

 whether the correct value of improvements or, let us say, 

 of the changes effected as intended improvements, can in 

 all cases be correctly ascertained. Since the landlord is 

 the compensating party, it is only right that " improvement " 

 should be proved to his satisfaction, especially after the exe- 

 cution of certain improvements has been made independent 

 of his consent. So good a judge as the late Dr. Voelcker 

 on one occasion remarked to me very positively — on one 

 of our visits to the Woburn experimental plots, while 

 the subject of improvements and compensation was under 

 discussion : "I myself would not pay compensation for 

 anything that I could not see." I myself am responsible 

 for a table showing what was at one time the money value 

 of the residue of feeding-stuffs, after passing through the 

 animal and going into the soil.^ Hov^^ever, we learn more 

 even about chemistry alone, every day. We know, for 

 instance, now about " amides " what we did not know 

 when those tables were prepared, and " amides " were 

 accordingly wrongly classed. The tenant may have em- 



1 " The Proportionate Fattening Qualities, etc., of Feeding Stuffs." 

 Published by the Agricultural and Horticultural (Co-operative) 

 Association, Long Acre, 



