On the Valuation of Unexhausted Manures. 
609 
manure from two opposite points of view. The outgoing tenant 
may consider that he is entitled to a larger sum, and he prefers 
to claim compensation under the Act. The outgoing tenant 
of the future will, however, have another alternative. He can 
reduce the stock of fertility by the consumption of foods which 
have high feeding- but low manure-value, and which are lower 
in price than the foods which possess both high feeding- and 
high manure-value. The incoming tenant knows what he has 
to pay for, and has only himself to blame if he pays too much. 
But behind the incoming tenant is the landowner, who must 
himself pay the claim of the outgoing tenant if he can find no 
one else to do so. It is, therefore, a matter of importance to the 
landlord that the compensation should be fixed on a basis 
sufficiently reasonable to render it not worth his while to carry 
the case to arbitration, or into a court of law. 
In 1876, Mr. Thomas Huskinson, who was at that time 
President of the Institute of Surveyors, gave evidence before 
the Chemical Committee of the Royal Agricultural Society in 
reference to the Lincolnshire custom. He said that com- 
pensation was the universal custom so far as cakes were con- 
cerned, but not in the case of any other foods. For cakes, 
one-half the cost of the last year's consumption was allowed ; 
' but this was not to be more than the average of the two pre- 
ceding years. At that date the price of linseed-cake was 
higher than at present, and very much higher than was that of 
decorticated cotton-cake, which was only used in comparatively 
small quantities, nor was its higher manure-value generally 
recognised. It may be observed -that the above allowance 
of 5/. 13s. 3<f., founded, not on cost, but on original and un- 
exhausted manure-value, would considerably exceed half the 
cost of one year's consumption at the present price of linseed- 
cake. 
It must be evident that the custom of giving compensation 
upon cakes alone, as in Lincolnshire and some other counties, 
has acted as a bounty in favour of such foods, and has so 
artificially enhanced their relative price. The Act of 1883, 
however, gives compensation for unexhausted manure-value, 
whenever it can be proved to exist, by the use of whatever food, 
or manure, it may have been accumulated in the soil. It is very 
desirable, therefore, to endeavour to make, and to publish, for 
the information and the consideration of those whose business 
it is to settle claims for compensation, the best estimates which 
the knowledge of the time permits — of the average composition, 
not only of cakes, but of all other foods likely to be used, of their 
total manure-value after consumption, and of their unexhausted 
manure-value after they have yielded increase of the crops grown. 
