The Agricultural Holdings {England) Act, 1875. 173 
the Act elsewhere, by necessary implication, leaves landlords and 
tenants free to regulate as they please the time of notice to quit, 
like every other part of the contract of tenancy (§ 54). The 
notice-to-quit provision is therefore no more compulsory than 
any other portion of the Act. Taken in connection with § 56 
and § 57, the effect of the provision will be this : — It will 
apply to every yearly tenancy beginning after February 14, 
1876, unless the landlord and tenant agree in writing to exclude 
the whole Act, or this particular provision. It will also apply 
to all yearly tenancies existing on February 14, 1876, unless 
within two months after that date the landlord notifies to 
the tenant, or vice versa, his desii'e that the contract of tenancy 
between them shall remain unaffected by the Act. Thus, in 
new tenancies from year to year, landlord and tenant must 
concur in contracting themselves out of this as of the other 
provisions of the Act, and the tenant will forfeit with his eyes 
open the advantages intended to be conferred upon him by 
the Act. It must be repeated that in existing yearly tenancies 
neither landlord nor tenant alone can adopt, but either can 
exclude the operation of the Act in respect of notice to quit or 
otherwise. In both new and existing tenancies it may also be 
repeated, mutual silence Avill mean consent ; it will be necessary 
for the parties, if they wish that the Act shall not apply, to 
record their intention in writing. One result of the statute, 
therefore, will be to multiply written agreements upon the 
letting of land, if indeed it does not make written agreements 
almost universal.* 
RESUMPTIOJf FOR ImPEOVEMENTS. 
Another provision, limited, like the last-mentioned, to yearly 
tenancies, authorises landlords, but only in the case of holdings 
to which the Act applies, to serve a tenant with notice to quit 
part only of the holding. This is a power which the landlord 
does not now possess ; but the notice will not be valid, unless 
the land is required for one of eight purposes here specified 
(§52):- _ 
1. Erecting farm-labourers' cottages or other houses, with or 
without gardens. 
2. Providing gardens for existing farm-labourers' cottages, or 
other houses. 
3. Allotment to labourers of land for gardens or other 
purposes. 
* " The great advantage of the Bill ,is, that it will induce the generality of 
landlords and tenants to muke agreements and define their engagements strictly." 
— (Viscount Portman, Debate on Third Reading, May 13, 1875.) 
