98 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ments ; and it is to be borne in mind that Mr. Whitehead's 

 totals should be larger than they are, because they do not 

 include additional expenditure incurred while waiting for the 

 trees and bushes to bear. 



How, then, should compensation be given ? Personally, I am 

 a strong advocate of the plan of allowing the tenant to sell his 

 improvements in the market, with pre-emption to the landlord. 

 Elsewhere, and on many occasions, I have shown how I would 

 safeguard the just claims of landlords in making the necessary 

 arrangements for free sale. There is not time to allow of my 

 going into details upon that topic to-day. Moreover, to do so 

 would be needless repetition, for are they not written in the 

 chronicles of the Farmers' Alliance ? — an association which would 

 have done great things for the farmers and fruit growers of the 

 country if they had sufficiently supported it. In my opinion, 

 free sale is far superior to the valuation system. When told 

 that it involves dual ownership in land, I always say, in reply, 

 that where two persons invest their capital, and inextricably mix 

 it, in the same piece of land, you must have dual ownership or 

 confiscation. There is absolutely no other alternative ; and if 

 you have a right to compensation by valuation, you have dual 

 ownership just as much as if you have free sale. Again, I am 

 told that free sale has not succeeded in Ireland ; but the reply 

 to that is, that it was a splendid success in Ulster before Mr. 

 Gladstone meddled with it, and, in my opinion, muddled it. 

 Having visited Ulster, I say that the results of free sale there 

 are wonderful. Considering the disadvantages in respect of 

 situation, climate, and often of soil also, under which the farmers 

 in that province laboured, what they did, stimulated by the 

 security afforded to them by free sale, long before the Land 

 Acts were passed, is a striking proof of the value of the 

 principle. 



It must be confessed, however, that free sale is not popular 

 in this country. It may further be admitted that the system of 

 compensation by arbitration and valuation can be carried out 

 more satisfactorily in relation to fruit trees than in the case of 

 ordinary farm improvements. The trees are on the ground, and 

 can be counted and valued, and their condition indicates how 

 they have been manured and otherwise treated. In some parts 

 of Italy it is the practice to make an inventory of all the trees 

 on a holding when the tenant enters, describing the number of 

 trees of each kind in each enclosure, indicating the condition of 

 the whole in general, if not of each, and valuing them. When 

 the tenant quits, a similar inventory is made, and he is entitled 

 to receive, or required to pay, any difference in the two valua- 

 tions, according to whether he has caused appreciation or 

 deterioration during his tenancy. Whether or not any allow- 

 ance is made for natural improvement on the one hand, or 



