134 Tlic Agricultural Holdings (England) Act, 1875. 
enabling him to buy the freehold. Under § 4.7, entire estates 
mav be bought by the tenantry with the help of State loans, 
provided that tenants representing four-fifths in value of the 
estate concur in a desire to purchase it, in vi^hich case outside 
purchasers may come in, and the Board will advance one-half of 
their purchase-money, with two-thirds of the purchase-money of 
the tenantry. 
Freedom of Contract. — It is hardly necessary to say that none 
of these provisions find a place in the English Act, which is 
restricted to its one object of adding to the security of farming 
capital by affording a reasonable compensation to tenants for 
such capital when sunk in the land and still remaining to the 
benefit of the land, always provided that no agreement exists 
to the contrary. The foundation of the Act is its recognition of 
the perfect competency of tenants as well as landlords to manage 
their own affairs and make their own bargains. If they think 
fit to exclude the operation of the Act altogether, they are free 
to do so, and each may, as heretofore, make the best terms he 
can for himself, or lay down the conditions which in his opinion 
best meet his own case. If the tenant chooses to forego all 
claims to compensation, he may do so ; if, on the contrary, he 
exacts more liberal compensation than any which the Act allows, 
and the landlord assents, they have nothing to do but to embody 
the precise terms in an agreement. They may contract them- 
selves entirely out of the Act in either case, for nothing in the 
Act will prevent a landlord and tenant, or persons contemplating 
this relation, from making any agreement they think fit, or will 
interfere with the operation of such agreement (§ 54). 
Adoption of parts of the Act. — On the other hand, they may 
agree (but the agreement must be in writing) to adopt ^ny parts 
of the Act they may think suitable to their case, excluding the 
remaining parts (§ 55). This is a most useful provision. For 
example, a landlord may distrust the working of the Act with 
regard to compensation, or the tenant may prefer to claim under 
custom instead of under the Act ; but both may agree in cither 
of these contingencies to adopt the sections of the Act which pro- 
vide for the settlement of disputes between them, or as to the 
amount of compensation due, or such of the sections as apply to 
the particular case. Again : the provision which recognises a 
landlord's title to meet the tenant's claim to compensation by a 
counter-claim,* for waste or breach of covenant (§ 19) is very 
* It seems iiiifortuiiate fur the landlord Hint lie can only put in a counter-claim, 
where the teniint liaa mado a claim for improvements under this Act. In many 
rases where (hero is a claim for awny-goinf; crop, or acts of husbandry, it would 
he well if tho lan<liord's claim for waste and dilapidation could ho put in and 
detcrmin(>d by arbitration.— A"o<c/»yjVr. J. 1). Dent, of Ribstonllall, Wctherhy. 
