CONFERENCE ON FRUIT GROWING. 



41 



have to so adjust the questions of landlord and tenant, that the tenant 

 is made secure in his own improvement, and that at the same time the 

 terms are not so onerous to the landlord that he will be unwilling to let 

 his land for the cultivation of fruit. I do not doubt myself, and I think 

 it was always the view of the Committee over which I had the honour to 

 preside, that the ideal system of fruit cultivation is ownership. If every 

 fruit-grower was the owner of his land we should not have our present 

 great difficulties, and the Committee unanimously recommended that if 

 anything could be done in the way of encouraging the purchase of small 

 holdings by legislation or otherwise it would be most desirable. But we 

 cannot expect that system to prevail generally, although in some cases it 

 does prevail and to great advantage. I need only mention the Wisbech 

 district of Cambridgeshire, where there has been a most remarkable 

 expansion of fruit-growing, secured largely by the fact that the growers 

 have been able to purchase their holdings. But we cannot expect that to 

 prevail everywhere, and so we ought to try to secure that, in the case of 

 tenancies, those tenancies should be fair to both parties. 



Now we have to meet a great many difficulties. In the first place, 

 the law on this matter is a particularly obscure law. I am bound to 

 say that neither the landlords, tenants, nor some of the land agents who 

 gave evidence before us seemed to know at all what the law really was. 

 In the next place we find that the law is made up of the Agricultural 

 Holdings Acts, modified in the case of market gardens, which apparently 

 can be made to include every kind of plantation, by the Market Gardeners' 

 Compensation Act, which secures to the tenant full compensation for 

 what he has expended on the plantation on the determination of the 

 tenancy. The object of the law was to do justice to the tenant. But 

 the operation of that law has been most deterrent to landowners, who 

 fear that they may be called upon, on a sudden termination of the 

 tenancy, to find a very large sum of money for the fruit trees upon the 

 land, which they can neither work at a profit nor find another tenant to 

 take over. The Parliamentary Committee considered that that had a 

 deterrent effect upon the letting of the land, and therefore upon the ex- 

 pansion of the industry. It would not do for me, as chairman, to enter 

 fully into the question, but I think myself we must try to find some miti- 

 gation of the present operation of the law. The Committee over which 

 I presided made one or two suggestions. We felt that the real difficulty 

 was the question of valuation. It was-said by some that when a tenancy 

 came to an end the compensation was to be determined by what was the 

 value to the incoming tenant. It was said also that such large amounts 

 were demanded that sometimes it was impossible to get an incoming tenant. 



What is necessary is to take such steps as shall afford a fair valuation not 

 merely to the outgoing tenant but to the incoming tenant. We suggested 

 that it would be an advantage if the Board of Agriculture — or that sub- 

 department of the Board dealing with fruit, which we should all be happy 

 to see established — would appoint certain valuers, expert in fruit valuation, 

 who could determine from time to time upon what particular, principle 

 and methods the valuation of fruit plantations should be carried out. We 

 thought also that, to meet the difficulty of landowners being frequently 

 called upon suddenly to find a very large sum of money to pay the out- 



