| 1850-1 | £5,471 |
| 1860-1 | 5,534 |
| 1870-1 | 8,525 |
| 1878-9 | 10,089 |
As to the effect of restrictive covenants on the depression, the balance of evidence did not incline either way.[669]
The Agricultural Holdings Act of 1875 was stated to have done much good in the matter of compensation to tenants for improvements, notwithstanding its merely permissive character, as it had reversed the presumption of law in relation to improvements effected by the tenant, prescribed the amount of compensation, and the mode in which it should be given.
As to the important subject of freedom of cropping and sale of produce, there were diverse opinions, some advocating it wholly, others not believing in it at all, others saying each landlord and each tenant should make their own bargains since each farm stands on its own footing, others again favouring modified restrictions. The preponderance of opinion was in favour of a modification of the law of distress.
The Commission further said that the pressure of foreign competition was greatly in excess of the anticipations of the supporters and of the apprehensions of the opponents of Corn Law Repeal; if it had not been for this, English farmers would have been partly compensated for the deficient yield by higher prices. On the other hand, the farmer had had the advantage of an increased and cheapened supply of feeding stuffs, such as maize, linseed and cotton cakes, and of artificial manures imported from abroad. At the same time the benefit to the community from cheap food was immense. It seemed just, however, that as agriculture was suffering from low prices, by which the country gained as a whole, that the proportion of taxation imposed on the land should be lessened; it was especially unjust that personal property was exempted from local rates, contrary to the Act of 43 Eliz. c. 2, and the whole burden thrown on real property. The difficulties of farmers were aggravated by the high price of labour, which had increased 25 per cent. in twenty years, largely owing to the competition of other industries, and at the same time become less efficient. As provisions were cheap, and employment abundant, the labourer had been scarcely affected by the distress. His cottage, however, especially if in the hands of a small owner, with neither the means nor the will to expend money on improvements, was often still very defective.
Farmers were already complaining of the results of the new system of education, for which they had to pay, while it deprived them of the labour of boys, and drained from the land the sources of future labour by making the young discontented with farm work. The Commission denied that rents had been unduly raised previous to 1875[670]; and in the exceptional cases where they had been, it was due to the imprudent competition of tenant farmers encouraged by advances made by country bankers, the sudden withdrawal of which had greatly contributed to the present distress. Districts where dairying was carried on had suffered least, yet the yield of milk was much diminished, and the quality deteriorated, owing to the inferiority of grass from a continuance of wet seasons. The production and sale of milk was increasing largely, so that the attention of farmers and landlords was being drawn to this important branch of farming, milk-sellers necessarily suffering less from foreign competition than any other farmers.
Let us turn once more to the hop yards: in 1878 the acreage of hops in England reached its maximum. We have seen that in the first half of the eighteenth century hop yards covered 12,000 acres; which between 1750 and 1780 increased to 25,000, and by 1800 to 32,000. In 1878, 71,789 acres were grown. The great increase prior to that year was due to the abolition of the excise duty in 1862, which on an average was equal to an annual charge of nearly £7 an acre.[671] This encouraged hop-growing more than the taking off of the import duty in the same year discouraged it. In 1882 there was a very small crop in England, which raised the average price to £18 10s. a cwt.; some choice samples fetching £30 a cwt.; growers who had good crops realizing much more than the freehold value of the hop yards. This, however, was most unfortunate for them, as it led to a great increase in the use of hop substitutes, such as quassia, chiretta, colombo, gentian, &c., which, with the decreasing consumption of beer and the demand for lighter beer, has done more than foreign competition to lower the price and thereby cause so large an area to be grubbed up as unprofitable, that in 1907 it was reduced to 44,938 acres. Yet the quality of the hops has in the last generation greatly improved in condition, quality, and appearance. Growers also have in the same period often incurred great expense in substituting various methods of wire-work for poles; and washing, generally with quassia chips and soft soap and water, has become wellnigh universal, so that the expense of growing the crop has increased, while the price has been falling.[672] The crop has always been an expensive one to grow; Marshall in 1798 put it at £20 an acre, exclusive of picking, drying, and marketing[673]; and Young estimated the total cost at the same date at £31 10s. an acre[674]; to-day £40 an acre is by no means an outside price. It may be some encouragement to growers to remember that hops have always been subject to great fluctuations in price; between 1693 and 1700, for instance, they varied from 40s. to 240s. a cwt., so that they may yet see them at a remunerative figure. 'Upon the whole', says an eighteenth-century writer, 'though many have acquired large estates by hops, their real advantage is perhaps questionable. By engrossing the attention of the farmer they withdraw him from slower and more certain sources of wealth, and encourage him to rely too much upon chance for his rent, rather than the honest labour of the plough. To the landlord the cultivation of hops is an evil, defrauding the arable land of its proper quantity of manure and thereby impoverishing his estate.'
It was by this time the general opinion of men with a thorough experience of farming, that in many parts of Great Britain no sufficient compensation was secured to the tenant for his unexhausted improvements. In some counties and districts this compensation was given by established customs, in others customs existed which were insufficient, in many they did not exist at all. It must be confessed that often when a tenant leaves his farm there is more compensation due to the landlord than to the tenant. Human nature being what it is, the temptation to get as much out of the land just before leaving it is wellnigh irresistible to many farmers.
In these days, when the landlord is often called upon by the tenant to do what the tenant used to do himself, the question of compensation to the tenant must on many estates appear to the landlord extremely ironical. It is, in the greater number of cases, the landlord who should receive compensation, and not the tenant; and though he has power to demand it, such power is over and over again not put in force.
At the same time there are bad men in the landlord class as in any other, and from them the tenant required protection. By the Agricultural Holdings (England) Act of 1875, 38 & 39 Vict. c. 92, improvements for which compensation could be claimed by the tenant were divided into three classes. First class improvements, such as drainage of land, erection or enlargement of buildings, laying down of permanent pasture, &c., required the previous consent in writing of the landlord to entitle the tenant to compensation. Second class improvements, such as boning of land with undissolved bones, chalking, claying, liming, and marling the land, the latter now hardly ever practised, required notice in writing by the tenant to the landlord of his intention, and if notice to quit had been given or received, the consent in writing of the landlord was necessary. For third class improvements, such as the application to the land of purchased manure, and consumption on the holding by cattle, sheep, or pigs, of cake or other feeding stuff not produced on the holding, no consent or notice was required. Improvements in the first class were deemed to be exhausted in twenty years, in the second in seven, and in the third in two. It was the opinion of the Richmond Commission of 1879 that, notwithstanding the beneficial effects of this Act, no sufficient compensation for his unexhausted improvements was secured to the tenant.