162 REPORT ON THE AGRICULTURE OF PERTHSHIRE. 



through the lease with a hundred pounds or two in hand, and is 

 not content to go on and do better where he has prospered 

 already, but must have a farm of twice the size ; or perhaps he 

 keeps the small one and takes another as big. The same ruinous 

 system of large land holding, with inadequate means, prevailed 

 very generally on all sizes of farms, and as the demand for farms 

 was generally greater than the supply, the inevitable result was 

 high rents in Perthshire, as compared with the rest of Scotland, 

 before they received the shock of the abolition of the corn laws. 

 And although at that time the land was badly farmed, and often 

 in an exhausted state, rents did not fall in proportion ; and so 

 long as the price of grain kept up during the Peninsular war, 

 rents were maintained at very high rates. Since that period, 

 however, with the exception of the three years' endurance of the 

 Eussian war, the times have not been prosperous for either pro- 

 prietors or tenants. When the price of grain fell after the close 

 of the war in 1815, it was impossible for tenants to pay money 

 rents computed on an expectation of 80s. per quarter for wheat, 

 with barley and oats proportionally high ; and to meet the 

 emergency a system of grain rents was introduced, the tenant 

 paying a fixed quantity of grain, converted yearly into money 

 according to the fiars of the county for the year. As we have 

 twice within the last twenty years seen the fiars prices of the 

 triple boll of wheat, barley, and oats reach four guineas, and 

 twice within the same period seen them fall to nearly forty 

 shillings, it will be readily understood that this system produced 

 great fluctuation in rents, and whilst it afforded a certain relief 

 to tenants, it has been productive of a rather uncomfortable state 

 of things to proprietors, as an average rental of L.3000, while it 

 has risen to L.4000, has also fallen to L.2000. 



During the last ten years the hopes of farmers, and still more 

 of people who were not farmers, have been excited by a revival 

 in the prices of grain, potatoes, stock, and all other farm produce, 

 and at the same time by agriculture becoming fashionable among 

 all grades of society, and land being for several years in greater 

 demand than ever ; but the bad season of 1862, coupled with a 

 low range of prices for grain, have again caused a depression, and 

 land can now be taken at a lower rate than in 1862. The 

 system, therefore, that has been pursued in Perthshire, is one 

 more for the encouragement of industry than for inducing men 

 of capital to embark in farming, and the result is that a large 

 proportion of the farmers who had barely capital for their farms 

 during the prevalence of the old grain growing idea, have never 

 had capital at all equal to the advanced requirements of the pre- 

 sent day, when L.10 per imperial acre is a moderate estimate. 

 Moreover, several of the seasons subsequent to 1862 have been 

 most disastrous to the grain growing farmer; his capital has been 



