The Agricultural Holdings (^England) Act, 1883. 
13 
with them. Nevertheless, by the time that tenant's improve- 
ments, of a spontaneous and unrequited kind, have become 
common — and, without undervaluing a class in whom I feel the 
strongest personal and indeed hereditary interest, I say they 
have not been so hitherto — some more or less satisfactory rules 
of practice will probably have been pretty generally accepted." 
In other words, even men accustomed by life-long training 
and experience to fix tenant-right compensation will have to 
grope very much in the dark for rules of practice ; and the 
acknowledged head of the profession can only assume that these 
rules, when found, will be "more or less satisfactory." Mr. 
Woolley proceeded to deal with a hypothetical case, in order to 
contribute his share towards the adoption of a fair working rule. 
It is a case of permanent improvement, No. 12, reclamation of 
waste land, and may be thus shortly put: — A peasant employed 
at weekly wages leases a cottage and acre of garden on the edge 
of a moor, and during his evenings and spare hours brings into 
cultivation a portion of moor-land, thereby raising the rental 
value of his holding in the course of fifteen years from 5Z. to 
20Z. Allowing for the winter months, for Sundays and other 
non-working days, as well as for harvest and other seasons 
during which he could have no leisure, an average of three 
hours per day for 200 days would be a very liberal estimate of 
time devoted to reclamation, and not occupied in working else- 
where for wages, or in ordinary acts of husbandry for himself. 
The value of this labour, equal to sixty days of ten hours each, 
is set down at 35. 6fZ. a day, representing an aggregate yearly 
value of lOZ. lOs. This sum, accumulated for fifteen years, with, 
interest at 5 pei cent, (an " extravagantly favourable " allow- 
ance for the tenant), amounts to about 226/. But the supposed 
increase in the value of the holding during the fifteen years is 
450/., arrived at thus : — 
£ 
Improved yearly vahie, 20?., at 30 years' purchase .. .. 600 
Original value, 51., at 30 years' purchase 150 
£450 
If the peasant quits his holding at the expiration of his lease, 
to whom belongs the difference between this sum of 450/. and 
the 226/., a very liberal estimate of his contributions towards it? 
Mr. Woolley replies, " Obviously to the landlord, because the 
dormant value, or capability of development, is his, both as a 
matter of abstract right, and according to the provisions of the 
Act, being 'justly due to the inherent capabilities of the soil.'" 
In this calculation " no account is taken of the benefit which 
the tenant derived from the cultivation of the holding during his 
