10 ON THE HISTORY OF LEASES OF LANDS 



populatiou to he attracted to commerce, and the rural to agri- 

 culture ; and thus began that measure of prosperity which, in 

 an almost uninterrupted and ever-increasing ratio, has continued 

 up to the present time. The improvement in agriculture, coupled 

 with better education, led to written leases becoming much more 

 common about the end of the seventeenth century. Fencing 

 seems to liave been little knoAvn about this time, for an Act 

 passed in 1686 aneut the herding of wintering cattle, and whose 

 penalties are still exigible, showed the opposite to have been the 

 rule. In Galloway, where the exertions of improvers were 

 rendered almost abortive by the "levellers," the building of 

 dykes and enclosing generally began in 1724, and in Ayrshire 

 only in 1766. Grass seeds were first sown in Haddington in 

 1720, liming first practised in Ayrshire in 1750, the growing of 

 potatoes in 1740, that of turnips in Wigtownshire and the 

 Lothians about 1747. It is thus readily seen how leases, for- 

 merly short, extended in volume. The alternate bear and oats, 

 and the laying down to grass by allowing it " to choose its own 

 root," needed little skill to execute and little stipulation in 

 regard to it ; but the more modern introductions and improve- 

 ments gave great scope to lawyers in spinning out the clauses 

 of the lease. As shoAving the insecurity attending the possession 

 of land which prevailed so late as 1747, a contract may be 

 mentioned, in which John and James Graham contracted with 

 gentlemen heritors and tenants of a part of Perthshire for the 

 protection of their stock and crop from the forays of the High- 

 land Clans. 



Obsolete Customs and Conditions. 



Reference has already been made to the abolition of slavery. 

 This change was no doubt induced by the better return obtained 

 from free labour and the more perfect esprit de corps which 

 animated the clansmen in time of war. 



The services which for centuries and at a very early period 

 formed part of the rent of the free or partially free farmers, 

 caused tliem to neglect their own work, and were a serious 

 obstacle to improvement. Mutual dependence and protection, 

 no doubt rendered military service a necessity at one time, the 

 " weapon -sliowing " proving that among agricultural tenants and 

 labourers warfare occupied a foremost place. But carriages of 

 fuel, labour on the demesne, and such like, were taken as part of 

 the rent, and are now little known. Smithy or " blow " rent has, 

 liowever, been seen by the writer as a condition of a lease now 

 current in Argyle". But since the country has assumed a more 

 peaceful and settled state, money become more plentiful, and 

 education improved, there has been a general tendency to con- 



