300 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



claying, liming, and marling the land, the latter now hardly 

 ever practised, required notice in writing by the tenant to the 

 landlord of his intention, and if notice to quit had been given 

 or received, the consent in writing of the landlord was necessary. 

 For third class improvements, such as the application to the 

 land of purchased manure, and consumption on the holding 

 by cattle, sheep, or pigs, of cake or other feeding stuff not 

 produced on the holding, no consent or notice was required. 

 Improvements in the first class were deemed to be exhausted 

 in twenty years, in the second in seven, and in the third 

 in two. It was the opinion of the Richmond Commission of 

 1879 that, notwithstanding the beneficial effects of this Act, no 

 sufficient compensation for his unexhausted improvements was 

 secured to the tenant. 



The landlord and tenant also might agree in writing that 

 the Act should not apply to their contract of tenancy, so in 

 1883 when the Agricultural Holdings Act of that year (46 & 

 47 Vict. c. 6i''^) was passed, it was made compulsory as far as 

 regarded compensation, and the time limit as regards the 

 tenant's claims for improvements was abolished, the basis for 

 compensation for all improvements recognized by the Act 

 being laid down as ' the value of the improvement to an 

 incoming tenant '. Improvements for which compensation 

 could be claimed were again divided into three classes as 

 before, but the drainage of land was placed in the second 

 class instead of the first, and so only required notice to the 

 landlord. This was the only improvement in the second class ; 

 the other improvements which had been in the second class in 

 the Act of 1875 were now placed in the third, where no 

 consent or notice was required. 



^ In one respect the Act of 1883 restricted the rights of tenants to 

 compensation, for while the Act of 1875 had expressly reserved the rights 

 of the parties under 'custom of the country', the Act of 1883 provided 

 that a tenant ' shall not claim compensation by custom or otherwise than 

 in manner authorized by this Act for any improvement for which he is 

 entitled to compensation under this Act' (§ 57). 



