178 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



" greater " freedom. Agreements teem with minute 

 conditions, many of them impracticable. Adequate 

 manurial return for hay and straw sold off, and restric- 

 tions as to cropping and sale in the last year of tenancy, 

 coupled with the power to give notice to quit, are 

 sufficient protection to the landlord. 



Mr H. Biddell, speaking of the practice at present in 

 Suffolk, thinks that tenants have a free hand, except 

 that they must not sell hay or straw, or have more than 

 half the land in corn the last year, this restriction being 

 essential in the interests of the incoming tenant. 



The Welsh witnesses generally make the same demands 

 as most of the English farmers, but it was stated that on 

 the whole there is more freedom of cropping in Wales 

 than elsewhere. 



Messrs Dean, very large farmers in South Lincolnshire, 

 believe in absolute freedom, except that the tenant should 

 leave on the holding the manure made from the produce 

 of the farm during the year previous to quitting. 



" A man who has not broken his course of farming in 

 the last ten years could not have done. We have broken 

 ours, and largely gone in for growing seeds. The general 

 character of my land has been improved by this, and I 

 have grown more corn afterwards. On two farms of 

 equal quality, one has had everything sold off for twenty 

 years, and the other has had nothing sold off With 

 artificial manure at one-fifth the cost of farmyard manure, 

 I have been able to grow as much corn but not quite 

 so much straw as on the farm where all had been con- 

 sumed. It is a national loss if farmers are restricted. 

 The landlord must protect himself by annual super- 

 vision." 



The demand in Scotland for freedom to sell off is 

 universal, but there should be a restriction on cropping 

 at the close of a lease. 



Mr Rutherford says when the manurial value of straw 

 is from los to 15s, and its selling price is up to 75s a 

 ton, " it would be no hardship to the landowner, and of 

 immense advantage to the farmers, if they were allowed, 

 whenever they thought fit, to sell straw or hay, provided 



