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THE WORK OF AGRICULTURAL 

 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEES SINCE 

 THE ARMISTICE. 



After the Armistice, when the compulsory breaking up of 

 grass land ceased, Agricultural Executive Committees devoted 

 their energies to the task of levelling up and improving the 

 general standard of farming in their respective counties. The 

 Committees retained, and still retain, all the powers that were 

 exercisable by them during the War under the Defence of the 

 Kealm Regulations, but for the last eighteen months Cultivation 

 Orders have been served only where the rules of good husbandry 

 were not being observed, or where in other respects land was 

 being neglected ; for example, in regard to the maintenance of 

 dvkes and drains. 



Enforcement of Cultivation Orders.— Cultivation Orders 

 usually specify a date by which the work is to be completed, and 

 where the work is not carried out, the defaulter may be prose- 

 cuted if the authority of the Ministry be obtained. 



Among interesting cases where legal proceedings have been 

 taken are the following : — 



(i.) In East Suffolk 33 acres of good corn-growing land were 

 bought in 1918, and the purchaser turned out the tenant, a 

 good farmer, after asking a rent which was more than the land 

 was worth. The land was then allowed to lie idle and become 

 derelict, in spite of the service of Cultivation Orders by the 

 Agricultural Executive Committee. The owner was therefore 

 prosecuted for failure to comply with the Orders, and fined £20, 

 or, in default of payment, six weeks' imprisonment. 



(ii.) A notice to plough six acres of land was served on a farm.er 

 in Worcestershire in August, 1919, but no action had been 

 taken by him. up to February, 1920. Tt was shown that the 

 land had lain derehct since the 1918 harvest, and about £80 

 worth of food was lost to the nation. The defaulter was prose- 

 cuted and fined £10 and £2 2s. costs. 



(iii.) An owner of land in Somerset was prosecuted for fail- 

 ing to comply with a Cultivation Order served in June. 1919, 

 requiring the land to be ploughed and cleaned by the 2nd 

 September. The defendant's solicitor pleaded guilty on behalf 

 of his client, but urged in extenuation of the offence that the 

 land was purchased with the object of selling it again, not with 

 the intention of cultivating it. and that delay had occurred in 



