permanent pasture without consent 1 99 



Laying down of Pasture. 



It is strongly urged by a number of witnesses that 

 the laying down of permanent pasture should be an 

 improvement for which the consent of the landlord is 

 not required. The Committee of the Central Chamber 

 of Agriculture recommend that this improvement should 

 be transferred from Part I to Part 1 1 of the Schedule. 

 Others would class this and other permanent improve- 

 ments under the head of improvements which can be 

 carried out if approved by an arbitrator. 



The Scottish farmers, who have had the fullest ex- 

 perience of the beneficial results of laying down, seem 

 particularly unanimous that the tenant should have a 

 perfectly free hand, but in some cases recommending 

 that notice should be given. Mr Hope reports that the 

 landlord's consent has, in many instances, been refused 

 to the detriment of all concerned, and from England 

 there is much evidence to a similar effect, and also that 

 landlords decline to enter into agreements to compensate 

 tenants who have laid down pasture. 



The great help that pasture, whether permanent or 

 temporary, gives to the farmer, and the certainty that 

 laying down must result in the accumulation of fertility, 

 makes it practically certain that a landlord cannot suffer 

 from the conversion of arable into pasture land. In the 

 future wording of an amended Act it must be assumed, 

 with regard to all improvements, that compensation will 

 not exceed the actual money value of the improvements 

 handed over by the outgoing tenant. 



It further appears from the evidence that the conversion 

 of arable into grass land, and the laying down of land in 

 temporary pasture, has been adopted by thousands of 

 farmers "as a means of saving themselves from ruin when 

 the prices of corn fell below the minimum cost of 

 production. This change has not only kept these farmers 

 going, but has already greatly benefited the landowners 

 who have been enabled to receive rents which could not 

 possibly have been paid them, even out of tenants' capital, 

 if this change of cultivation had not been carried out. 



