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THE L. S. D. OF SPORTING RENTS.

The author of a recent work on the laws for the protection of game points out that, though formerly denounced as relics of barbarism and a means of oppression by landlords, they have now become a valuable source of revenue to the country. So they have, in a sense, for the sum paid in licences to kill game amounted last year to 184,4881. But this, though a means of public revenue, is not a source of individual wealth, nor can the sum paid to the public Exchequer for State permission to kill game be compared with the vast rent-roll now poured into the pockets of private owners and occupiers of land for the practical exercise of the same rights. Part of this sum is contributed by sportsmen who are not owners of land; but a very large proportion is paid by land owners whose estates do not produce the kind of game-whether fur, fish, or feather-which they prefer to pursue.

The capital value of the sporting rents advertised by a single firm of land agents amounted last year to 8,750,0001., reckoning the letting value at 4 per cent. The fund so expended elsewhere

. than in Scotland is now of such magnitude that it deserves consideration, if only from the economic side. The effect of this increment of rent, first felt in the Highlands, where poor landowners were raised from penury to comfort, and then from comfort to wealth, by the demand for grouse moors and deer forests, and the discovery that the former could be improved year by year and the latter 'manufactured,' has now extended to the remotest counties of England, where at all points within reasonable distance of London or the larger towns prices for shooting and fishing are ever on the rise, though the quality of the sport, owing to the indifference of many occupiers and their ignorance of the profits which a little care would ensure, tend to become yearly rather worse than better. It is with the rise in the value of English, rather than of Scotch, sporting rights, and the prices paid for shooting and fishing in the South, rather than that in the North, that this paper mainly deals ; for the values of good English shooting and fishing often stand now at double and treble what they were even twenty years ago. But as Scotland has been

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the forerunner in this matter, a glance at the present mine of wealth in Scotch shootings may give some clue to what is to come in the future to English landed estates of every degree of sporting capacity.

If anyone would measure the price which the modern Englishman is willing to pay to gratify his taste for sport, let him take the list of deer forests to let for any one season. The number of these forests'-in great part manufactured to meet the demand, and as much commercial undertakings as the stocking of a cattle ranche-is as striking as the prices obtained are astonishing. Good and bad, ancient 'forest' or modern deer ranche, they owe their value solely to their sporting rights, and their values are almost entirely an increment of the present reign. It is not, however, a net gain to the owner, because the sheep have been displaced. On the other hand, as sheep no longer pay as they used to, and many of the big sheep farmers were ruined, the net gain is much larger than would otherwise be the case.

As one ounce of fact is worth a pound of theory, and figures are not so misleading as some persons prefer to maintain, let us glance at the prices asked-and, we may add, obtained without difficulty-for Scotch shootings. Perhaps Inverness is the favourite, as it is the most beautiful, of the deer-producing counties. Here we shall be in touch with the best article and the highest prices. But the choice is not limited to one or two counties; for even of deer forests, the dearest and scarcest of the demesnes on which sporting rights are for hire, there are annually from seventy to a hundred in the market. The total aggregate rental asked for seventy such estates, on which red deer, ranging in numbers from six or seven to 150 stags and hinds, may be shot in a season, amounted last year to 109,0001. This total is made up of rentals varying from 4,000l. to 4001. But in the county of Inverness alone, the sporting rights of the first twenty estates on one of the large agents' lists amounted to just under 40,0001., while that of the first ten reached 26,0001. Five hundred and thirty-nine grouse moors; four hundred and fifty-eight mixed shootings, with every kind of fowl, from grouse and pheasants to snipe, rock pigeons, and Solan geese; fifty-five winter shootings, yielding birds and beasts from snipe to red deer hinds; and two hundred and seventy private fisheries, advertised by the same firm in a single season, testify to the recognition

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of this magnificent source of income to landed proprietors mainly north of the Tweed. If we set the total annual value of the above list at 250,0001., deducting the rent of houses let with the sportings, we shall not be much above the mark; and adding to this another 100,0001. for deer forests, we shall get 350,0001. as the annual value of shootings let by a single firm of agents engaged in forwarding this pleasant and profitable business between landlord and sporting tenants across the border. In other words, as we have said above, this represents the interest at 4 per cent. of a capital value of 8,750,0001., credited to the owners of these particular moors, woods, and runs, as the value of their sporting rights alone!

With this incomplete reference to the value of sporting rights in Scotland, we may proceed to the main object of this paper, which is to give some facts and forecasts as to the present and future values accruing to landlords from their sporting rights in England, and more especially in the southern, home, western, and eastern counties, which have been hit hardest by the decrease in the agricultural value of land.

Really first-class English pheasant shootings are more valuable than grouse moors, as the following instances show: 2,500 acres of good mixed shooting, with no house, a railway within two miles, and a thoroughly good record of game killed for four seasons, let

a for eleven months, excluding January, the last month of the shooting season, for 850 guineas ! The landlord paid all wages and rearing expenses,' while the tenant paid for the beaters. 1501. would amply cover keepers' wages and hire of sitting hens for so small an area. So we may set the value of the sporting rights of this 2,500 acres at a clear 700l. per annum. It is doubtful if the net profit to the owner from agricultural rent for this property amounted to 2,0001. per annum. Hence his sporting rights represent more than one-third of his income from his land. The average bag of game was about 4,000 head. In Hampshire we find 50 guineas asked for the shooting of 800 acres for the month of September alone; and in Hertfordshire 1,500 acres of partridge shooting, for which 2501, is wanted for the season. The bag expected is 250 to 300 head of partridges, 200 hares, and 600 rabbits. This price is the highest we have seen demanded for so small a bag; but as the ground is within easy reach of town it was probably obtained. The rental gives 38. 4d. per acre.

There can be no better instance of the increment from this

source to the occupiers of purely agricultural farms than the recent history of the rents for partridge shooting in North Norfolk. On many of the large estates of this district the sporting rights have always been reserved by the owners. But on a very large proportion the tenant farmers have the sporting rights in their own hands, and have so held them for the last fifteen years or more. The greater part of this land is famously well farmed, not the poor, sandy, heathy soil which one sees round Thetford, and what is called the ' breck’ land of Norfolk, much of which is hardly fit for anything else but game farming and rabbit warrens; though there is some of this at Sandringham. It is light chalky soil, which drains itself; and though near to the sea, the crops never seem to suffer from the sea-fogs. This land is divided into very large fields, with small weak fences between them, and very little artificial cover, except the strips of wood and plantations for partridges to nest in. The big bare fields are all farmed "high,' with crops set like patterns, and great flocks of sheep, and turnip fields to feed them. Nothing whatever is conceded to the needs of game. Not a thistle patch, or a rough uncleaned ditch, or a late crop of thin barley is to be seen to hold birds late or give them nesting-places early. The land is, in fact, farmed on thorough business' principles; all the rabbits are killed off and a large percentage of the hares, and yet the shooting rents are simply enormous, because this district is, for some cause not clearly understood, the second best natural partridge ground in England. The best is on the Norfolk 'breck' lands; but the country from Wolferton (the station for Sandringham) past Docking, Heacham, Stanhoe, Holkham, and on to Cromer, swarms with partridges ; and as all of it has the same natural advantages, except that that which fringes the reclaimed marshes of the coast is perhaps the best, the demand for shootings there is keen. Now these stocks of partridges do not cost the tenant farmer one single penny, either to rear or to protect. The men on his farm give an eye to the nests, and fortunately shooting has so long been recognised as a valuable asset in that part of the country that no one ventures an inch across the border when shooting neighbouring land, and egg-stealing is reported and punished promptly, as it ought to be. There are no rabbits left, and the Ground Game Act enables the tenant to keep the stock of hares as low as he likes. Consequently, in letting this hooting, he lets only partridge shooting; and to maintain this, as

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we have said, costs him nothing. Before seeing exactly what it brings him in now, we may go back fifteen years, when farming was at its worst, after a period of great prosperity. If he did not hold the right of sporting then, he probably received it gratis, or plus a big reduction of rent about that time. This was fair enough, for times were shocking, and the landlord was often only too glad to part with sporting rights in place of cash. Rents then went lower still, and on these big farms of from 500 to 1,200 acres the new tenants generally entered naturally into the sporting right. It was not, in fact, attempted to be withheld; times were still too bad. Neither did the tenants, though anxious to make all the money they could, set any high monetary value on this right. A very few years ago hardly one of these farmers let his shooting. They kept it to amuse themselves and their friends. Then one or two set the example of letting; and the prices made, followed by the steady increase in the demand for shooting, and the subsequent rise of its letting value per acre, have made this practice almost universal.

There is no doubt that the prices paid for this North Norfolk shooting are too high, even in the face of the demand for it. One farm of 1,000 acres, with no wood on it at all, purely partridge shooting, let for 1101. The farm itself is only rented at 5401. per annum, so for his sporting right the occupier netted a little over one-fifth of the rent he was paying. Three years ago he did not let it at all, and fifteen years ago he might perhaps have made 301. or 401. for his shooting, a rent which would have entitled the shooting tenant to keep up enough rabbits to do 101. worth of damage at least. This'unearned increment’ represents to such a tenant a reduction on his rent of twenty per cent., a very welcome and real addition to the value of landed property. For there is little doubt that when the present leases are rearranged, this increment will be taken into consideration as a landlord's asset. Quite recently on land in Norfolk rented by the agricultural tenants at 68. per acre, the sporting rights were at once sublet at 28. per acre.

Generally speaking, it is cheaper to rent English shooting from the landlord than from the tenant. The former does not drive such a hard bargain. On the other hand, in this case the

. area is often much larger than that which can be hired from tenants, and it commonly happens that a large house has to be taken as well.

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