TEANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 835 



tion of rents, or to preferential railway rates. Without entering into tliese subjects 

 I submit that improved technical agricultural instruction on the one hand, and an 

 ^flBcient Department of Agriculture on the other, are urgently needed. Of all the 

 productive arts agriculture is, in this country, the least provided for as regards 

 Technical education, and it is a reproach to us, as a nation, that this should be so. 

 The Rothamsted investigators, than whom I can quote no higher authority, assert 

 {'.Phil. Trans.' Part I. 1880, p. 290) that 'agriculture — the most primitive and 

 commonly esteemed the rudest of arts — requires for the elucidation of the principles 

 involved in its various practices a very wide range of scientific inquiry.' This 

 means that in agriculture, as in all other progressive industries, empiricism must 

 die. 



Obviously the question before us is this. Is British agriculture, already by 

 pessimists regarded as a moribimd industry, really to be left to decay, with the 

 deplorable but inevitable result of crowding the rural population into the towns ; 

 or is it, by a wise and enlightened policy, to be brought into harmony with the 

 scientific spirit of the times, and so to be embarked upon a new era of profitable 

 and progressive development ? 



2. On the Future of Agriculture. By W. Botlt. 



The author advocated a return to the scale of rents existing previous to the 

 great French War, showing that the numerous committees, commissions, and Acts 

 of Parliament had been delusive and useless in sustaining prices. 



He considered the remedy for the lamentable depression to be an equitable 

 adjustment of rents, tenant right, security of tenure, and compensation for all un- 

 exhausted improvements, whether to the outgoing or sitting tenant; decent cottages 

 for the labourers, with garden ground attached thereto ; the tenant to have suffi- 

 cient capital to farm advantageously, with skill and enterprise to use it, and to 

 have a right to the game. 



3. Recent Illustrations of the Theory of Rent, and their Effect on the Value 

 of Land. By G. AuLDJO Jamieson. — See Reports, p. 536. 



4. On Depreciation of Land as caused hy recent Legislation. 

 By CouRTENAT C. Peance. 



The author pointed out that land had hitherto had a factitious value in England ; 

 that investors were content with a 2^ or 3 per cent, return instead of 4 and 5 per 

 cent, as in banks, railways, or mortgages. He found an explanation of this in the 

 advantages and privileges which the possession of land brought with it : as for 

 example, (1) it was a visible token of property and conferred a county status ; (2) 

 it was permanent and safe, having increased in value with lapse of time ; (3) it had 

 a sentimental value — it was pleasant to walk over, gratifying to show to friends 

 and to admire as pictures ; (4) it carried with it the right to sport ; (5) it gave 

 political power over voters ; (6) power also in the parish charities and Poor Law 

 relief, and was the qualification for the county magistrate ; and (7) it was a means, 

 by entaily and settlements, to build up families, perpetuate names, and extend 

 possessions. 



These were some of the efiective causes in rendering land a coveted possession 

 and giving it an augmented value. 



But this land-hunger was now gone. No longer are there competing purchasers 

 or competing tenants. In proof of this the author referred to the advertisement 

 columns of the Titnes and other newspapers now empty of estate sales, and said 

 that at present to attempt sales of land by auction is merely throwing away money. 

 That landlords were everywhere seeking tenants, not tenants farms, and too often 

 seeking in vain. He referred to the Income Tax returns as to vacant farms, and 

 to land out of cultivation, and to reduction of rents by 20 to 50 per cent, in order 

 to avoid this. He substantiated this by a table of the ' Decrease of land assess- 



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