A Short History of English Agriculture

by W. H. R. Curtler

The landlord and tenant also might agree in writing that the Act should not apply to their contract of tenancy, so in 1883 when the Agricultural Holdings Act of that year (46 & 47 Vict. c. 61)[675] was passed, it was made compulsory as far as regarded compensation, and the time limit as regards the tenant's claims for improvements was abolished, the basis for compensation for all improvements recognized by the Act being laid down as 'the value of the improvement to an incoming tenant'. Improvements for which compensation could be claimed were again divided into three classes as before, but the drainage of land was placed in the second class instead of the first, and so only required notice to the landlord. This was the only improvement in the second class; the other improvements which had been in the second class in the Act of 1875 were now placed in the third, where no consent or notice was required.

The Act also effected three other important alterations in the law; first, as to 'Notices to Quit', a year's notice being necessary where half a year's notice had been sufficient, though this section might be excluded by agreement; secondly, after January 1, 1885, the landlord could only distrain for one year's rent instead of six years as formerly; and thirdly, as to fixtures. These formerly became the property of the landlord on the determination of the tenancy, but by 14 & 15 Vict. c. 25 an agricultural tenant was enabled to remove fixtures put up by him with the consent of his landlord for agricultural purposes. Now all fixtures erected after the commencement of the Act were the property of and removable by the tenant, but the landlord might elect to purchase them.

This Act was amended by the Act of 1900 (63 & 64 Vict. 50), and has been much altered by the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1906 (6 Edw. VII, c. 56), which has treated the landlord with a degree of severity, which considering the excellent relations that have for the most part existed between English landlords and tenants for generations, is utterly unwarranted. In several respects indeed he has been treated by the Act as if the land did not belong to him, while freedom of contract, until recent years one of the most cherished principles of our law, is arbitrarily interfered with. The chief alterations made by the Act of 1906 were:—

1. Improvements.—By the Act of 1883, in the valuation for improvements under the first schedule, such part of the improvement as is justly due to the inherent capabilities of the soil was not credited to the tenant This provision is repealed by the Act of 1906, in reference to which it must be said that the latent fertility of the soil, sometimes very considerable, may be developed by a small outlay on the part of the tenant for which outlay he is certainly entitled to compensation. But the greater part of the improvement may be due to the soil which belongs to the landlord, yet the Act credits the tenant with the whole of this improvement. An addition is made to the list of improvements which a tenant may make without his landlord's consent and for which he is entitled on quitting to compensation, viz. repairs to buildings, being buildings necessary for the proper working of the holding, other than repairs which the tenant is obliged to execute.

2. Damage by Game. A tenant may now claim compensation for damage to crops by deer, pheasants, partridges, grouse, and black game.

3. Freedom of Cropping and Disposal of Produce. Prior to this Act it had been the custom for generations to insert covenants in agreements providing for the proper cultivation of the farm; as, for instance, forbidding the removal from the holding of hay, straw, roots, green crops, and manure made on the farm. These and other covenants were merely in the interests of good farming, and to prevent the soil deteriorating. In recent times vexatious covenants formerly inserted had practically disappeared, and where still existing were seldom enforced. By this Act, notwithstanding any custom of the country or any contract or agreement, the tenant may follow any system of cropping, and dispose of any of his produce as he pleases, but after so doing he must make suitable and adequate provision to protect the farm from injury thereby: a proviso vague and difficult to enforce, and not sufficient to prevent an unscrupulous tenant greatly injuring his farm.

4. Compensation for unreasonable disturbance. If a landlord without good cause, and for reasons inconsistent with good estate management, terminates a tenancy by notice to quit; or refuses to grant a renewal of the tenancy if so requested at least one year before the expiration thereof; or if a tenant quits his holding in consequence of a demand by the landlord for an increased rent, such demand being due to an increased value in the holding owing to improvements done by the tenant; in either of such events the tenant is entitled to compensation.

This compensation for disturbance is in direct opposition to the recommendation of the Commission of 1894,[676] and seems to be an unwarrantable interference with the owner's management of his own land.

Another benefit, and one long needed, was conferred on farmers by the Ground Game Act of 1880, 43 & 44 Vict., c. 47. Before the Act the tenant had by common law the exclusive right to the game, including hares and rabbits, unless it was reserved to the landlord, which was usually the case. By this Act the right to kill ground game, which often worked terrible havoc in the tenant's crops, was rendered inseparable from the occupation of the land, though the owner may reserve to himself a concurrent right. One consequence of this Act has been that the hare has disappeared from many parts of England.

The greatest improvement in implements during this period was in the direction of reaping and mowing machines, which have now attained a high degree of perfection. As early as 1780 the Society of Arts offered a gold medal for a reaping machine, but it was not till 1812 that John Common of Denwick, Northumberland, invented a machine which embodied all the essential principles of the modern reaper. Popular hostility to the machine was so great that Common made his early trials by moonlight, and he ceased from working on them.[677] His machine was improved by the Browns of Alnwick, who sold some numbers in 1822, and shortly afterwards emigrated to Canada taking with them models of Common's reapers. McCormick, the reputed inventor of the reaping machine, knew the Browns, and obtained from them a model of Common's machine which was almost certainly the father of the famous machine exhibited by him at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Various other inventors have assisted in improving this implement, and in 1873 the first wire binder was exhibited in Europe by the American, W.A. Wood, wire soon giving place to string owing to the outcry of farmers and millers. The self-binding reaper is the most ingenious of agricultural machines, and has been of enormous benefit to farmers in saving labour. Though the hay-tedding machine was invented in 1814 it is only during the last thirty years that its use has become common, the spread of the mowing machine making it a necessity, cutting the grass so fast that only a very large number of men with the old forks could keep up with it. The tedder also rendered raking by hand too slow, and the horse-rake, patented first in 1841, has immensely improved in the last thirty years.