170 LAND TENURE 



technical point to be decided. The principal paragraphs of 

 these reports are given below : 



Your Committee desire to draw particular attention to the 

 marked differences between customs prevailing to-day and those 

 existing in the year 1848, when Mr. Pusey's Select Committee 

 issued its report. For example, in Lincolnshire, at that time, no 

 allowances were given for guano or other highly concentrated 

 manures, w r hich are now universally allowed for in that county. 

 Compensation for draining was then only partially introduced,, 

 though it is now a general custom in Lincolnshire. At that time 

 there was no allowance in Staffordshire for purchased oilcake,, 

 feeding stuffs, and artificial manure, or for marling, boning,, 

 liming, planting quickset hedges, or draining, all which are now 

 subjects of compensation, in, at any rate, the southern division 

 of that county. In Cambridgeshire, in that part called the Isle 

 of Ely, allowance for oilcake, for artificial manures, and for 

 claying, is new, since the date of Mr. Pusey's inquiry. In Notting- 

 hamshire allowances for draining were only partially introduced 

 at that time, but are now universally the custom, together with 

 compensation for roadmaking, planting quickset hedges, execut- 

 ing irrigation works, and making main drains, watercourses, and 

 reservoirs. In Cheshire there was at that period no allowance 

 for either draining or planting quickset hedges, which, however, 

 obtains in North Cheshire at the present time. In parts of 

 Oxfordshire compensation for chalking and boning has been 

 introduced since 1848. In South Wiltshire allowance for pur- 

 chased manures is new. In parts of Gloucestershire artificial 

 manures are now allowed for, and compensation is given for 

 draining, though neither of these improvements was recognised 

 by custom in 1848. And in parts of Dorsetshire a small allow- 

 ance for oilcake, feeding stuffs, and purchased manures, and also- 

 for draining, has been introduced, though there was no custom 

 of the kind mentioned in the House of Commons' report. This 

 is sufficient to show that an inquiry and report of so early a date 

 as 1848 is wholly insufficient to enable anyone to arrive at a correct 

 conclusion regarding the established customs of the various coun- 

 ties in the present day. 



Your Committee would direct attention to the absence of any 

 uniform principle upon which customs might be supposed to 

 have originated. Thus guano is allowed for in some counties 

 when applied to corn crops, in other counties only when applied 

 to root or green crops ; and in the latter case, some counties or 

 districts pay for all, and some for only half the quantity used 

 in the last year ; and while some counties pay for no guano used 

 in the last year but one of the tenancy, other counties pay for 

 one -third of what is applied in that year. For oilcake the allow- 

 ances vary from half the value of cake used in the last year, 

 with nothing for cake used in the year before that, to one -fourth 

 of the last year's and one -eighth of the previous year's cake, 



