156 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



evidence that by the working of the Act in practice bad 

 farming is encouraged, as the worst type of farmer may 

 exhaust the fertiHty of his farm for years, and still 

 obtain compensation by expenditure in the last years of 

 his tenancy; and good farming is discouraged, because 

 the best farmer enriches his land to the utmost in the 

 first years of his occupation, and requires less outlay 

 afterwards to maintain the fertility, but only receives a 

 small proportion back of the outlay of the last year or 

 two, while the previous outlay is in practice ignored. 

 The bad farmer gets more for half spoiling his farm than 

 the good farmer has a chance of getting for a long 

 continued and ample expenditure in generous treatment 

 of the soil, which, wisely done, increases for many years 

 after the productive powers of the farm. 



Mr Scott says : " The mere fact of a man spending 

 some money at the end of his time does not of necessity 

 do the land any good. The man who has farmed well 

 all through under the Act gets no more than the man 

 who has farmed badly and puts manure on at the 

 end. The Agricultural Holdings Act is an Act for 

 rogues." ^ 



In the second place, the intention of the Act has been 

 to a great extent defeated, at any rate in England, and 

 the debt of the landlord to the outgoing tenant has 

 been transferred to the incoming tenant. The Act con- 

 templated a settlement between the two former parties, 

 and this seems to have been carried out in Scotland, but 

 the practice, in England, under the customs of most 

 counties, of the incoming tenant paying for tillages, and 

 in some cases crops, has been either kept up as regards 

 improvements, or extended to them after the passing of 

 the Act. This may inflict injustice on both outgoing 

 and incoming tenants. A Wiltshire farmer says : " The 

 outgoing tenant should have to do with the landlord 

 and should not be handed over to the incoming tenant. 

 This is a very convenient way of getting out of landlords' 

 responsibilities." Cases are given where landlords have 

 sold farms and handed their tenants over to the new 



' Wilson Fox, Glendale, p. 21. 



