208

EXPENCE AND PROFIT OF LAND

tain, in any one particular year, what are the average expencesand average profits of the farmers of Scotland .

It may be proper, however, to allude to a species of profitwhich is not commonly attended to, namely, the profit—notof the farmer, but of the landholder. When, by judiciouscovenants in leases, by encouraging his tenants to reclaimbarren, and improve rugged land, and by exacting a fair,and.no more than a fair rent, his farmers are enabled toleave their farms at the end of their leases, able to bear thricethe former rent, his lands, supposing money to be depreciat-ed one half, are worth 50 per cent, of more real value thanwhat they were twenty years before.

CONCLUSION.

Perhaps a comprehensive view of the Mode of Occupationof the lands in Scotland , at the end of the year 1813, com-pared with the manner in which lands were occupied at for-mer periods, may deserve to be read with attention.

Previous to the Reformation, the Romish clergy, partlyfrom the rents of the church lands, and partly from the tithes,which were payable in kind, drew at least one-half of the land-rents of the kingdom; and the occupiers of land were obli-ged to give three weeks’ notice to the rector, or tithe-holder,before they could carry their corn into the stack-yard. Inthis situation agriculture could never prosper, whatever pro-portion of the produce was paid to the land-owner. Thedecreet-arbitral of Charles I. followed by the act of the ScotsParliament 1633, rendered the tithe laws no longer injurious,as they had formerly been to Scottish agriculture.

But till after the Revolution, a great proportion, in mostdistricts one half, of the territory of Scotland , was occupied