THE CORSEHOPE EXPERIMENT 1 93 



of the greatest benefit to the owner and to the com- 

 munity at large. 



It would only be just also that such an amendment of 

 the Act should be accompanied by provisions giving the 

 landlord power himself to set the Act in motion, and to 

 effectually check dishonest and depletive farming. 



Continuous Good Farming. 



The nineteen years' lease in Scotland, and long leases 

 generally in other districts, have naturally led farmers to 

 enter on a carefully planned out treatment of the soil to 

 secure the maximum productivity. The question of com- 

 pensation for cumulative fertility or continuous good 

 farming is bound up with this system. The direct result 

 of a long lease is to encourage the immediate fertilising 

 of the soil to the highest point in the shortest time, in 

 order that the tenant may draw the maximum of benefit 

 from his generous . treatment of the soil during the 

 currency of the lease. But although this motive of self- 

 interest operates to a certain extent, it is thwarted by the 

 motives suggested by the administration of the Act. 



" The use of the time scales has been unfortunate. If 

 two farmers were to start together on a nineteen years' 

 lease, and one of them was to make his farm his bank for 

 the whole time, and the other farmer had done nothing for 

 the farm, under the system of scales they would get 

 very much the same amount awarded to them." ^ 



"It pays a man better to leave his land foul and im- 

 poverished than it does to leave it clean and fertile." ^ 



The history of Mr Riddell's experiment on the 

 Corsehope farm and the working of the Act in that 

 case are highly instructive.' 



Mr Riddell on entry, seeing that the method of 

 cultivation by breaking up and cropping the hill pastures 

 would exhaust the farm, laid the whole down in grass, 

 and fed very heavily with cake for the first few years on 

 the new grass. There was also a heavy outlay in bone 

 manures and on liming during the earlier portion of the 

 ' Riddell, 54,537, &c. » C. S. Read, 16,572. ' Riddell, 54,544-54,748. 



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