2 BEDFORDSHIRE. 



marling of the soil. If there be no usage to that effect, and no express 

 stipulation, the outgoing tenant can claim no compensation for any of 

 these improvements, however short may be the time between their 

 completion and the termination of his occupancy. In practice, the 

 compensation agreed to be paid by the landlord to the outgoing tenant, 

 is paid by the incoming one. The cost of the several improvements is 

 found by valuers, who spread the amount over a certain number of years, 

 within which each kind of improvement respectively is supposed to repay 

 itself, and deduct the time during which the tenant has enjoyed the 

 benefit of it. It would simplify their calculations if the Michaelmas entry 

 was universal. The customs in England and "Wales are as follows : 



Bedfordshire. — The original system in Bedfordshire was a Lady-day 

 hiring, the tenant being entitled to the awaygoing crop ; but in most 

 instances the practice is now changed into the regnlar IMichaelmas 

 hiring. The tenant-at-will receives notice by the 25th of March to 

 quit the next Michaelmas ; and is obliged, according to the custom, 

 generally speaking (though not invariably), to give up his fallows, and 

 a portion of the farmhouse, and a stable for the horses, to the incoming 

 tenant ; and the incoming tenant is allowed to come in and sow the 

 seeds himself. The Norfolk system generally prevails, of allowing the 

 outgoing tenant to cultivate the fcxllows in the usual way, carrying the 

 manure out and sowing the turnips, cutting the hay, and stacking it on 

 the fixrm. He has to be paid by valuation for the hay and turnips, but 

 he receives nothing for manure, except the cartage, however expensively 

 it may have been made. No exception is made even in the case of 

 oilcake manure. There is no custom that enables the tenant to claim 

 compensation for artificial dressings or drainage, or anything of that 

 kind. In the Duke of Bedford's leases it is stipulated that the tenant 

 should pay six per cent, on the cost of "hollow draining with drain- 

 pipe tiles. Bet upon soles or flat tiles ; " the tenant paying for the 

 carriage of the same. On his Grace's estates, all the dung manure and 

 compost produced and made during the last year of the tenancy, and 

 all unexpended manure whatsoever is left for the incoming tenant 

 without compensation, and the unconsumed straw, hay, green crops, 

 stubble, haulm, stover, chaff, and cavings is paid for at a spending 

 price. The incoming tenant is allowed to enter in the November of the 

 last year of the term, and as often afterwards as he requires, to prepare a 

 certain portion of the arable land for a fallow ; and to enter at seed-time 

 on all the land which shall be sown for a crop of l)arley or other spring 

 com, and sow clover or any other grass seeds, to be harrowed in with the 

 grain. He may also enter upon the stubble land, which may have pro- 



