LANDS OCCUPIED IN COMMON

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PART I.

OF LANDS OCCUPIED IN COMMON.

Lands, in some cases, arc still held and possessed in com-mon. As, in this state, they are of the least service to thecommunity, it fortunately happens, that only a small portionof the land in Scotland is now occupied in that manner.Anciently, the barren hills, the high mountains, the extensivepeat-mosses, and the greatest part of the uncultivated land,were held in common by the proprietors, and either occu-pied as common pasturage, or used for digging fuel by thefarmers and other inhabitants of the neighbouring districts.Sometimes one landholder had the j jratcipuum, or feudal rightof property, while the neighbouring proprietors, from imme-morial practice, or written documents, had a claim to certainservitudes, such as a right to fuel from the peat-mosses, or topastnrage on the barren lands. Sometimes each proprietorhad an exclusive right to the pastures on the moors immedi-ately adjoining to his arable fields, while the more remote hillor mountainous district, was either accounted a king’s forest,or was occupied in common by all the proprietors or farmersin its vicinity. Even in the low country, and most fertile dis-tricts, in some cases, royal boroughs or other communities,and in a multitude of instances, individual proprietors, bothheld and occupied lands, which were in run-ridge, or run-dulc, when subject to the plough; but were used as commonproperty, when, after being exhausted by cropping, they borea scanty produce of natural grass. But, in consequence oftwo acts of the Scotch Parliament, for dividing lands in run-ridge and commons, already specified, (see Chap. II. p. 100.),scarcely any arable land is now in that situation, and theextent of uncultivated soil remaining in common is constant-