160 
GlasshoiiseL 
In January 1889 the plaintiff, Sir H. B. Meux, granted a lease 
of a farm, situated in the parishes of Cheslnint and Enfield in the 
counties of Hertford and Middlesex, to the defendant at a rent of 
225Z. a year. The farm contains about 152 acres, and is partly 
pasture and partly arable. The lease contained a covenant by the 
defendant, as is usual in farm leases, that he would in all respects 
cultivate and manage the farm “ in a good, proper, and husbandlike 
manner according to the best rules of husbandry practised in the 
neighbourhood.” The plaintift’’s complaint against the defendant 
was that the defendant, without the plaintiff’s consent, in 1889 
erected on the arable land two glasshouses for the cultivation of 
tomatoes and other hothouse produce for the London Market, and 
that in 1890 he erected a third glasshouse for the same purpose, in 
spite of the remonstrances of the plaintiff’s bailiff, and also that 
the defendant was intending to erect additional glasshouses. The 
plaintiff contended that the erection of these houses for the pur- 
poses mentioned 'constituted such a change in the mode of cultiva- 
tion stipulated for in the lease as to amount to a breach of the 
above-quoted covenant, and that the conversion of the farm into a 
market garden was “ waste,” and would cause loss to the plaintiff, 
and throw an additional burdeir on the land. The defendant, on 
the other hand, contended that he had a right to erect the houses, 
and that they constituted an improvement to the farm, and to the 
inheritance of it ; and further that the erection of the houses was 
authorised by the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883, and that they 
were buildings which, having regard to the provisions of that Act, 
might be removed by the tenant at the expiration of the tenancy, 
or be bought by the landlord. Mr. Justice Kekewich, without 
deciding the last point, gave judgment for the defendant— the 
tenant — with costs against the plaintiff — the landlord. 
The material part of his Lordship’s judgment is reported as 
follows : — “ It was to be observed that although this was a lease of 
a farm — an agricultural lease — yet there was no prohibitive cove- 
nant against the lessee doing the things complained of, and also 
that the lease contained no provision as to rotation of crops. There- 
fore the lessee was left at large to cultivate the land at his discretion, 
the only restriction on that discretion being, that he was to cultivate 
‘ in a proper and husbandlike manner according to the best rules of 
husbandry practised in the neighbourhood ’ ; and the lease also 
bound him to yield up at the end of the term in good condition not 
only the existing buildings, but . all fixtures and other things 
attached to or set up on any part of the farm. So that the lease 
contemplated certain additions in the way of fixtures ; also it was 
to be observed that anything of this kind done was to be done at 
the tenant’s risk. He could not compel the landlord to take it or 
pay for it, so that after spending perhaps hundreds of pounds on the 
property, the tenant might be compelled to go out of possession 
without having received anything but a poor return for his expendi- 
ture, and possibly without getting anything back. Now what was 
the tenant doing which was not ‘according to the best rules of 
