172 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



unexhausted value of their improvements, have stated 

 that in their view it is necessary to apply the same 

 principle to landlords, and on the one hand to give 

 compensation for increased fertility, and on the other 

 for decreased fertility, without any time limit what- 

 ever. These witnesses cannot have considered the 

 essential difference in the position of the two parties. 

 The tenant is debarred from obtaining any form of 

 compensation for his acts of improvement at any time 

 during the course of the tenancy. Under the present 

 law he can recover nothing, unless he actually quits the 

 holding. Even if the proposals as to the compensation 

 of the sitting tenant, recommended later in this chapter, 

 were adopted, compensation could only be obtained at 

 the determination of the tenancy, in the event of the 

 terms of the tenancy being modified. The position of 

 the landlord is wholly different. He can at any time, 

 under the powers of the common law, take action against 

 the tenant for deliberate acts of " waste," or for damage 

 caused by the breach of any covenant. He has only 

 himself or his agent to blame if he has not also, under 

 the specific covenants of the lease or agreement, protected 

 himself from " permissive waste " on the part of the 

 tenant. It is more to the interest of all concerned, 

 that matters of this kind should be dealt with as they 

 arise, and that large and indefinite liabilities for an un- 

 limited time should not be kept hanging over the heads 

 of tenants. 



Few suggestions made to us have been so strongly 

 supported as the proposal that the exact condition of a 

 farm, at the beginning of a tenancy, the state of the 

 buildings, roads, fences, drains, and other equipment, and 

 the cropping, and quality of cultivation of the several 

 fields, should be recorded in a scheduled form, which can 

 be referred to as evidence at any future period, as to 

 whether the holding has been improved or deterior- 

 ated. 



Such a scheduled record or inventory is held to be the 

 best practical starting point, and that, even if the 

 original surveyor or valuer dies, or is unable to report at 



