Derby Prize-Farm Competition, 1881. 
471 
a further reduction of rent was made on account of the disastrous 
floods ; but we venture to express an opinion that 50s. an acre 
for a large farm whose meadows are subject to repeated floods, 
and whose arable land will burn in a drj season, and which 
has the worst buildings of any farm we inspected, requires 
either the expenditure of a large sum by the landlord, or a per- 
manent drop in the rental to enable the enterprising tenant to 
make a fair living profit. The local burdens paid by the 
tenantry of the district are not very high ; the poor's-rate 
appeared to us most creditably low. 
Some sort of tenant-right appears to prevail in the neigh- 
bourhood, but it varies with the localities ; and though it is 
being gradually strengthened and enlarged, it is neither so 
precise nor so ample as it ought to be. We have rarely visited 
any district in which the tenants contributed so much — some- 
times the labour, sometimes a part of the materials — for the new 
buildings on the homesteads. In a few instances the whole cost 
of the cowhouse and other such necessary buildings has fallen 
entirely upon the yearly tenant. The late tenant of the Croxden 
Abbey farms spent his money on the permanent improvement 
of the land as if he had been the owner. Arable land was 
turned to pasture, and pipe-drainage 4 feet deep was executed 
without any aid from the landlord until last year, when the 
owner undertook some under-draining, charging the tenant 
a percentage upon the outlay. We well remember with what 
pride poor Mr. Carrington showed us his farms, as the good 
result of a complete confidence between landlord and tenant. 
He said he farmed without any agreement, and that his an- 
cestors had been tenants of the land as long as the present 
noble family had owned it. Little did we dream, when we first 
inspected these farms, that a tenancy which had endured for 
centuries would be so sadly and suddenly terminated in a very 
few days. An attack of measles, bronchitis supervening, laid 
that strong, vigorous, and energetic man in his grave at the 
early age of forty. There was a young family, but no son old 
enough to succeed him. Not only was the head of the family 
taken away, but the hand that managed every detail of the farm 
was gone too, and no one could possibly fill his place. The 
dying man knew this, and directed his executors to at once 
relinquish all his farms. A heavy and complicated respon- 
sibility rests upon them. They must leave a large share of the 
tenant's capital in the land, and there being no general law by 
which compensation is secured to the old tenant, chief part 
of the tenant-right must be left to the justice and generosity of 
the landlord. We sincerely trust that an amicable settlement 
VOL. XVII. — S. S. 2 K 
