The Agricultural Holdings {England) Act, 1875. 177 
to encourage tenants to lay out their money in the improvement 
of the premises, and in making their industry as productive as 
possible, which is for the benefit of the State as well as the indi- 
vidual. " This object applies at least as strongly to tenants in hus- 
bandry as in trade. Agriculture, in the improved state in which 
it is now carried on, is in itself a trade ; it requires a much larger 
capital than formerly, and the use of more expensive imple- 
ments and machinery. Without the aid of modern improvements, 
the land cannot be made so productive as it otherwise may be, 
nor the produce so well preserved and brought to market. But 
unless the tenant is entitled to take away with him, at the end 
of his term, or have a compensation in value for, buildings like 
these in question, erected in such a manner as to be capable of 
being removed at pleasure and set up on any other farm, he will 
not be at the expense of erecting them at all ; and, therefore, 
though he, and through him the public, will suffer, yet the land- 
lord will not be the better for the right which he now claims. 
This is no question whether permanent additions or improve- 
ments made by a tenant to an old dwelling-house or out-build- 
ings, or even to new ones erected by him for his personal 
accommodation, can be removed at the end of the term ; for not 
even persons renting premises for the purpose of carrying on 
trades have any such privileges. It is a question whether build- 
ings erected for the sole purpose and convenience of carrying on 
the farm — that is, of turning to the best account the capital and 
industry of the farmer in his trade or business — may not be 
removed by hirn. In this respect there is no distinction between 
trade and agriculture. The fair conclusion from the old autho- 
rities is, that whatever buildings are erected by a tenant (be the 
materials what they may, or however placed in or upon the 
ground) for the immediate purposes of his trade, or for the more 
advantageous working of his farm, he may remove them again, 
provided he leave the premises on his quitting as he found them. 
According to this rule, no injury could ensue to the land- 
lord, whose property would, on the contrary, be eventually im- 
proved by the better cultivation of it, while the public would 
derive an immediate advantage from the encouragement afforded 
to the capital and industry of the tenant." 
This case, occurring more than seventy years ago, is of some 
historic interest now ; and the arguments on the defendant's 
behalf correctly epitomise those which were advanced much 
later in advocating the right of tenant-farmers to compensation 
for permanent or temporary improvements made by them. If 
the Court of King's Bench had taken Lord Kenyon's view of the 
law, and the policy of the law, and had decided in the defen- 
dant's favour, much of the later agitation, and some of the more 
VOL. XII. — .S. S. K 
