564 
The Agricultural Holdings Act. 
THE AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS ACT. 
Meaning of “ Determination of Tenancy.” 
In the first volume of the current series of the Journal 1 1 drew 
attention to three cases, one English and the others Scotch, hearing 
upon the subject of the determination of farm tenancies, which, as 
I then pointed out, appeared to be of importance to landlords and 
tenants of agricultural land in both countries, not only because the 
words “ determination of the tenancy” are used in the same context 
in both the English and Scotch Agricultural Holdings Acts, but also 
because in both countries farm tenancies often come to an end as 
regards part of a farm at one period of the year, and as regards 
other part or parts of it at another or others. By the first section 
of each Agricultural Holdings Act a tenant who has made on his 
holding any of the scheduled improvements is entitled to obtain 
from the landlord compensation for the same “ on quitting his 
holding at the determination of a tenancy ; ” and by Section 7 of 
each Act the tenant is required, “ two months at least before the 
determination of the tenancy ” in the case of English holdings, 
and “ four months at least before the determination of the tenancy ” 
in the case of Scotch holdings, to give notice in writing to his 
landlord of his intention to make a claim for compensation. In the 
English case, which I reported in 1S90, the Queen’s Bench Division of 
the High Court of Justice in England, and in the first of the two 
Scotch cases, which I reported at the same time, the Court of 
Sessions in Scotland, decided that the words “ determination of the 
tenancy ” in Section 7 of each of the Acts meant the time when 
a total determination of the tenancy took place, and not the time 
when the greater part of the farm (1,000 acres out of 1,200) in the 
English case, or the arable part of the farm in the Scotch case, 
was given up. The principle of these decisions has recently been 
held to be correct by the judgment of the House of Lords — which 
I may perhaps remind readers of the Journal is the ultimate 
Court of Appeal alike for England and Scotland — in a case in 
which James R. Black was appellant and John Clay respondent ; 
and as that case, though coming from Scotland, has, in effect, settled 
the point of law in both countries, it has been deemed expedient 
that a note of it should appear in these pages. 2 
Mr. Clay, it appeared, was tenant of a farm in Berwickshire 
under a lease for nineteen years, which commenced in 1860. The 
term of nineteen years was extended for thirteen years beyond 
that period, and the provisions in the lease were made to apply to 
such extended term. Now the lease provided that the farm was 
thereby let “ for the space of nineteen years from and after the 
entry of the said John Clay, which, notwithstanding the date or 
1 Vol. I. (Part I.), 3rd Series, 1890, p. 204. 
2 Black v. Clay, reported in the Weekly Notes for 1894, p. 120. 
