8 



in the land, though currants, gooseberries 

 and raspberries will help when three 

 years planted, or strawberries their second 

 year; vegetables and other crops may be 

 grown between, however, if there is a 

 sale for them. To work fruit land takes 

 a great deal more capital per acre than 

 agricultural land does, requiring, say, £30 

 per acre for ready-planted land, and to 

 plant trees on arable land will need an 

 outlay of close upon £100 per acre, and 

 now, with increased costs, even £150, before 

 they are remunerative. Even strawberries 

 will have cost £35 or more, if well manured 

 and cultivated, before they begin to bear. 

 The rent of an established orchard may 

 vary from £5 to £15 or even more per 

 acre, according to its capacity of money 

 return. The price of fruit on the trees or 

 bushes when sold by auction per acre 

 varies in Kent from about £2 to £20 or 

 more for the best, according to crop, 

 variety and locality.* 



In renting land it is very desirable to 

 know something of the landlord and his 

 agent. I thinic it may be accepted in 

 general that the best landlords are those 

 whose ancestors have for generations 

 proved themselves fair to their tenants, 

 have realized that ownership has its 

 duties as well as its privileges and who 

 carry out a principle of " live and let 

 live." Times have, however, been hard 

 on many landowners owning agricultural 

 property without any town or other pro- 

 perty to help the balance. 



Landowners freshly come from business 

 or professions often lack the mutual trust 

 and interest in local affairs that men have 

 who have known the inhabitants from boy- 

 hood. 



A man generally makes a better land- 

 owner than a woman, the latter being apt 

 to look on her landed possessions simply 

 as rent-making machines, taking little or 

 no interest in the welfare either of the 

 property or its people. This is accentu- 

 ated if she employs her family solicitor 

 to transact her business instead of a land 

 agent who understands agricultural 

 affairs. The former is apt to act in an 

 unmerciful way with a tenant to extract 



*ln view of the changing conditions through which 

 the industry fs- now jtasfting, the-^e figures can only 

 be taken as representing comparatire values. — Editor, 

 F. F. and T. T. J. 



the last pound of flesh in the way of rent 

 and neglect necessary repairs, regardless 

 of the permanent welfare of the estate. 

 The cost of an agreement or a lease should 

 not be great and it should be borne 

 equally by landlord and tenant and not 

 charged to the tenant only. 



I kneiv one case of a solicitor who ap- 

 parently knew nothing of the farm he was 

 letting. In the draft lease, amongst the 

 many clauses and restrictions inserted, 

 was one that " fishing and shooting were 

 reserved to the landlord." Actually a rain 

 water tank was the largest sheet of water 

 on the farm. In this case the prospective 

 tenant, in self-protection, got his own 

 solicitor to look after his interests in the 

 lease. The total result was that he had 

 to pay for the time of both solicitors, 

 and the lease cost the tenant £50 for a 

 farm of 130 acres. I merely mention this 

 as a warning, as I fully believe there 

 are many landlords v.'ho are and would be 

 willing to make equitable arrangements 

 with tenants who intend planting and cul- 

 tivating fruit. 



A liberal spirit is not made by an Act 

 of Parliament, and a niggardly landlord 

 remains so even after the passing of a 

 Market Gardeners' Compensation Act, or 

 an Agricultural Holdings Act, as it stands 

 at present, as unless the wording of the 

 lease mentions " that the land is let as 

 market garden land or for planting," a 

 landlord is able to refuse any claim for 

 fruit planting. Of course the agreement 

 needs to be fair from both the landlord's 

 and the tenant's side. 



It would be hard for a landlord to be 

 compelled to compensate for plantations 

 he did not wish made on his land and 

 which might not necessarily increase its 

 value ; and an impecunious landlord might 

 not like to be under the constant snadow 

 of the possibility of a big claim from 

 a tenant for fruit planted ; at the same 

 time it is mean to allow a man to improve 

 one's property without having any inten- 

 tion of recouping him for a share in the 

 cost of the improvement. As a matter of 

 fact, in Kent, fruit farmers do not fre- 

 quently change their holdings, but in most 

 cases continue on the same farm for many 

 years, their sons often succeeding them 

 and sometimes buying the land their 



