1 04 EEPORT OF THE AGRICULTURE OF AYRSHIRE. 



lias become so notorious of late, it seems to the writer that the 

 total or partial abrogation of that law would affect our farmers 

 very little, if any at all. The rise in rents, however, cannot be 

 much laid to the law of hypothec, but is due almost entirely to 

 strong competition amongst the farmers for more land, often 

 more than they have funds properly to manage, either for them- 

 selves or their sons, and to a pretty numerous class always 

 cropping-out amongst the " bovvers" and upper farm-servants, 

 ambitious of possessing small farms. Such desire on the part of 

 these is commendable enough. To talk of them being " men of 

 straw" is simply incorrect. Men of straw ! Honest and inde- 

 pendent men they are, of the true Burns stamp : men of bone 

 and muscle, and practical knowledge, as much required on the 

 small farms as great amount of lying capital. What great capi- 

 tal does it take to enter into a clay farm of from 80 to 100 

 acres, with only some 20 acres of it in all under the plough ? 

 Although the milch cows may be rather few the first year, the 

 grass is all that the more productive of milk, and the cows soon 

 multiply and replenish. Farms taken between 1850 and 1860 

 are doubtless too high-rented, — much higher comparatively in 

 Ayrshire than in other western shires, and by much too high for 

 profitable investment in tillage-farming, or even in grass-farm- 

 ing, unless seasons become greatly warmer, — but who is to 

 blame ?■ — just the farmers themselves, both larger and smaller ; 

 and rents will soon again adjust to their proper level, for these 

 few years back have damped the rage for land very considerably 

 {Some of the landlords, to their credit be it said, were not very 

 exacting during the late cycle of bad years, Eglinton and Bal- 

 lochmyle returning 10 per cent, of the rent once or twice, whilst 

 Auchinleck and Sorncastle gave 10 per cent, of a drawback in 

 lime. From a pretty long experience of both, the writer would 

 as much credit the smaller inland farmers of Ayrshire with goods, 

 as the more extensive ones nearer the sea ; but, the former in- 

 deed, as a class, neither want nor ask for credit, as what few 

 seeds, manures, implements, &c, they require, are generally paid 

 cash. Talk of the effect of repealing the law of hypothec being 

 to drive these from their farms ! Nonsense. They can hardly 

 be more fore-rented than they are presently. Getting possession 

 of the ploughable land about or after Martinmas, and entering 

 fully to the houses and grass at Whitsunday, they pay their first 

 half-year's rent at Martinmas following, which is as much as 

 they have yet drawn from the cows, and the small amount of 

 grain-crop they cannot — without loss both on grain and fodder 

 — thrash out at once. Although the law was made null to- 

 morrow, that would not alter the case in Ayrshire with regard to 

 fore-rents or back- rents in the slightest, we believe. If our land- 

 lords did think of such a thing as asking rent immediately on 



