IN SCOTLAND.

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or attorneys. That Court is,empowered by the act to dis-cuss the relevancy or legal competency of the application ; todetermine upon the rights and interests of the parties con-cerned or claiming concern $ and to grant a commission forperambulating the lands, and taking all the requisite proofs,both of the extent of the common, and of the individual in-terests of the respective claimants. The whole proceedingsof the commissioners must be reported to the Court, whichpronounces an ultimate decree by which the whole'is deter-mined. The interests of the individual heritors, or proprie-tors having fights on the common, are directed to be re-spectively estimated in proportion to the vdlued rents* oftheir respective property lands, proved to have rights overthe common ; and the portions to be allocated to each, are tobe made contiguous or convenient to their'respective proper-ties. The court has also power to divide the mosses or peat-bogs, if any, among the parties ; or, if these cannot be con-veniently divided, they are to remain still in common, withfree isk and entry, (egress and regress),' whether divided ornot. 1 •" ; ' ’' - '' " 4 *- ; *

In virtue of this act, the Court of Session is in the practiceof dividing commons among proprietors having interest, inproportion to the valued rents of the sevefal laAds and pro-perties havingirights upon the common. When the questionis among those who claim rights of servitude only, such ascommon pasture, or of turf, feal, and divot f, on the surface,the court estimates their respective interests, and limits their

* Valued rent is a well-known term in the Scotch law, which refers to therctours or estimates of land rents, made du ring the usurpation of Cromwell fortlie purpose of taxation, and which were virtually adopted after the Restoration.Sec Chap 2, Sect. 1.

f These are thin parings of turf, made by means of a Jlaughter-spade orbreast-plough, and applied of old to various purposes in rural economy ; as forfuel, the reparation of cottage roofs, barn-yard dikes, the walls of hovels, bot-toming of dung-hills and the like: all of wluch have fallen of late much intodisuse, as greatly deteriorating thg surface.