INTRODUCTION.

XV

The fpirited euftivator may be inclined to improve his lands, as is frequently thecafe, even where the profit he is to derive from fuch improvement cannot be confi-derabfe ; but under fuch circumftances he muit conftantly be prevented from pro-ceeding by the operation of this injudicious regulation: where a tenth or more of theproduce arifing from the exertions of the improver are to be taken away, it is ob-vious that final! returns will not anfwer; efpecially in a bufinefs where there is muchritk from feafon and other caufes. By this means the community is confequentlydeprived of the various advantages refulting from inereafed indufiry and augmen-tation of produce. By the fame fyfiem alfo, much good land, exclufivc of commonsand waftes is conftrained to remain in the unprofitable fiate of grafs, which mightotherwite, by a trifling expenditure of money, and no very extraordinary degree ofexertion, be rendered greatly more produftive under proper arable management.And it is likewife highly injurious in many inflancesj by fubjedling the farmer to-a difgufling dependence on the tythe-owner.

It is evident that the effects of this meafure mud be equally detrimental to theinterefts of the proprietors of lands as to thofe of adtual farmers ; for whatever tendsto leflen the exertion and induftry of the latter mud neceflarily diminifh theincomes of the former, and in a proportion much greater than is commonly fuppofed.But they are injured in another way betides that of rent ; for as a tenth of theproduce of the lands is thus taken away in kind, a deficiency of manure to thatextent muft be the confequence, the difadvantages of which are now generally wclLunderflood. The effedl which the abolition of tythes in Scotland has had inpromoting agricultural improvements, alfo affords a ftrong and fatisfactory proof oftheir operating powerfully againft the advancement of hulbandry ; for it cannot beattributed to any other circumflance that improvements have been carried on fomuch more extenfively in that part of the ifland than in this.

But it is not merely in flopping the progrefs of agricultural improvements thatthe payment of tythes in kind is prejudicial, its effects are injurious in many otherpoints of view which it is unneceflary to confider at prefent. It is therefore a mat-ter of the utmoft importance that fuch an alteration or modification fhould be ef-fected as might render the claims of the proprietors fecure, without producing thofe.milchievous confequcnces which proceed from it in its prefent form*.

* An able and ingenious cultivator, the Rev. H. J. Clofe, has fuggefted a plan for the removal of thepayment of tythes in this way, which, from its nature and (implicit)', feems to deferve our attention. The'Communications to the Eoard of Agriculture, Vol. III.