A Short History of English AgricultureCurtler, W. H. R. (William Henry Ricketts)
History
A Short History of English Agriculture
Curtler, W. H. R. (William Henry Ricketts)
Agriculture -- England -- History
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.
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.
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