FREEDOM TO MAKE IMPROVEMENTS iSS 



of farmers, and of the more enterprising farmers, to have 

 a statutory right to carry out all improvements which 

 are suitable to the holding and necessary to give any 

 chance of success. It is contended by some that the 

 mere letting of land for a specific agricultural purpose is, 

 in intent, a giving of consent by the landlord for the 

 working of the land for that purpose by the most effective 

 and remunerative methods, and that it is illogical and 

 unjust that when the tenant wishes to carry out im- 

 provements of this character, and which are essential to 

 this object, the landlord should have by law the 

 right to withhold his consent, and thus compel the tenant 

 either to desist from working his land in the most re- 

 munerative way, or to face the risk of having his whole 

 outlay on such improvements confiscated by the landlord, 

 on any determination of the tenancy. 



These views are held most strongly where tenants have 

 to make the heaviest outlay in order to carry out their 

 business with any chance of success. 



Dr Fream reports of the fruit and hop districts of 

 Kent, that there is a general demand that the whole of 

 the improvements to which, by this Act, the consent of 

 the landlord is required, should be transferred from 

 Part I to Part III of the First Schedule of the Act; in 

 other words, that tenants should be perfectly free to 

 execute any permanent or first-class improvements, with 

 a right to subsequent compensation, whether the landlord 

 consented or not. 



The cost of growing hops runs to £60 an acre, and 

 of the newer methods of permanently wiring for hops to 

 from ^20 to £s^ ^^ acre. Hop growers would require 

 the security of a long lease, or the right to compensation 

 before undertaking such an outlay. 



Similar arguments are put forward by the market 

 gardeners of the Vale of Evesham. The preparatory 

 clearing of the land and the planting of fruit trees and 

 bushes is very costly (running from ;^20 to £So an acre), 

 and has invariably been done by the tenant, and at his 

 own risk. Up to the passing of the Market Gardeners' 

 Compensation Act, 1895, these men were absolutely at 



