FEOM THE EARLIEST TIMES. 11 



densing these servitudes under a money rent — a rasult which 

 has in general been attained. 



During the early Middle -Ages, tlie system of inland and out- 

 land prevailed over a great portion of Europe; but although still 

 spoken of in Perthshire, it, too, has fled before civilisation. 

 Better culti^'ation by free labour and the better security now 

 existing for life and property, have led to the system of self- 

 contained farms, which over Scotland is now almost universal. 



Kane was an ancient condition for payment of rent which 

 evidently had arisen for want of a better medium. It was the 

 can of the Celts, meant a tax or rent; but even down to the days 

 of Bruce the royal revenues were paid in cattle. When grain 

 and money began to be the rent mediums, articles of small value, 

 such as eggs, fowls, &c., formed the kane, and still are exacted on 

 some estates. Tlie idea of produce rents has been modernly 

 developed in a manner wdiich, being remarkably suitable to the 

 circumstances, is not likely soon to go out of practice. The 

 letting of cows to a dairyman for a cheese rent is very common 

 in the dairy districts of the south and west of Scotland. The 

 farmer supplies the cows, the feeding for botli summer and winter, 

 the dairy utensils, — in short, every requisite, — and in return 

 receives so many stones of cheese as a produce rent. This kind 

 of rent or kane is much more common than a money one, but lioth 

 present a legal difficulty not very easily overcome. The farmer 

 has by law no lien over the produce, he even cannot create one, 

 and he has no right of li}^othec; hence lie protects hmiself 

 against collusion and fraud by making tlie contract one of ser- 

 Adce, in which the wages of the dairyman or bower are formed 

 by the surplus over a certain guaranteed (juantity of produce, or 

 sum of money, wliicli stands in the place of the kane. Otherwise 

 the farmer's cheese becomes a common asset of the dairyman. 



The ancient custom of herczdd — for there is no trace of its ever 

 being a condition — most likely originated in the law of the chief. 

 At the death of a tenant the landlord could claim the best animal 

 of any kind belonging to the heirs — corresponding with the 

 manorial claim in England. This unjust and irregular impost 

 fell into desuetude about the end of the seventeenth century, 

 although it is noticed in Inverness in 1738. 



The system of lianding over stocking to tlie tenant at the 

 beginning, to be redelivered at the end of his term, was in force 

 wlien the labour was mostly performed by slaves, and ha,s its 

 (;ounterpart at some period in the history of almost all civilised 

 countries. In Scotland it lingered till tlie eighteenth century, 

 and ill the case of " goods " and even hill stocks is still known. 

 For the last two centuries it has been much more common in 

 the east of Scotland tlian in the south or west. It existed as late 

 as 1750 in Roxburgh, wliere it was more practised on led farms 



