I20 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



asked for much more in buildings, drainage, and other 

 improvements and equipments for stock, dairying, and 

 other modifications of farm working. And the evidence 

 is uniform that with the fall in agricultural prices there 

 has been a rise in the cost of building operations. 



It may be doubted, for reasons stated later, whether 

 there has been an increase in the outlay on improvements 

 since the more acute period of the depression. In some 

 cases exceptional efforts have been made to restore 

 estates to a sound condition, but in general we believe 

 the impression of some witnesses that there has been 

 greater outlay as depression deepened, is due to the 

 fact that there have been since 1882 and 1883 successive 

 breaks down of tenants in many districts, and that the 

 new tenants who took farms on the changes of tenancy 

 have very naturally insisted on having better equipment 

 of their holdings in order to have some chance of doing 

 better than their predecessors. 



Mr Wilson Fox is probably interpreting the facts 

 correctly, for the country generally as well as for 

 Lincolnshire, when he attributes the outlay on improved 

 buildings to "the fact that both sitting and incoming 

 tenants have asked for more, both in enlarged and 

 extra buildings and in repairs, to which requests the 

 landlords have had to accede, sometimes to retain, 

 sometimes to acquire tenants." 



Reasons have already been given from the evidence for 

 thinking that most of this expenditure has been for 

 new tenants. 



The proportion of gross rents returned to the land in 

 the shape of buildings, drainage, and other permanent 

 improvements and repairs on many large estates varies 

 somewhat, but this variation is in some cases probably 

 due to the fact that estates that have been uniformly 

 well managed and kept up, require less annual outlay, 

 except where some considerable change is made in the 

 methods of farming. 



The amount expended in permanent improvements 

 and repairs on some large estates is as follows :— 



Lord Derby, in South-West Lancashire, on 43,217 



