REPORT ON THE AGRICULTURE OF PERTHSHIRE. 163 



seriously diminished in consequence, and precisely at the time 

 when he required double the capital he ever possessed to enable 

 him to take from stock the profits which he formerly took from 

 corn. No doubt, there are farmers possessed of large capital in 

 Perthshire, and of fortunes greatly exceeding the sums invested 

 in their farms, but they are the exceptions. There are large 

 farms in Perthshire, but Perthshire is by no means a county of 

 large farms or large farmers. This remark had still greater truth 

 in the last generation, the size of farms having since then been 

 much increased by joining small possessions together. Two 

 causes have contributed to the enlargement of farms — First, the 

 more substantial and expensive buildings which are required in 

 the present clay for small farms. A small tenant, paying from 

 L.50 to L.100, must have a house and steading as complete and 

 substantial of its size as a tenant paying L.1000 ; but as the 

 expense of putting up dwelling-houses and steadings for ten 

 farms, each of L.100 rent, is much greater than the cost of erect- 

 ing similar buildings for one farm of L.1000 rent, there is a 

 general attempt to save building by amalgamation. Secondly, 

 the other consideration which has led to the enlargement of 

 farms, and which applies to the pendicles and crofts, is that 

 hand-loom weaving, which chiefly employed and maintained the 

 families on these pendicles, and left all the produce, after paying 

 expenses, as rent for the land, has failed as a lucrative branch of 

 industry, and the produce, which formerly went for rent, has now 

 to support the occupant and his family. But in addition to this, 

 it is manifest that all the parts of a proper system of mixed 

 husbandry of grain growing and cattle feeding cannot be advan- 

 tageously carried on upon a very small scale. While, therefore, 

 the old farms of moderate size in Perthshire remain very much 

 in statu quo, there is a general inclination to raise the smaller 

 farms up to a size equal to keeping three pairs of horses, or, at 

 all events, to give a tenant as much land as would have been 

 wrought with three or four pairs of horses twenty years ago, 

 leaving him to increase the proportion of pasture, and reduce the 

 force of men and horses according to his own views. 



Having made these general remarks on the past and present 

 condition of land occupancy in Perthshire, which apply more or 

 less to all parts of the county and to all the varieties of land, it 

 may now be advisable to consider the subject under three sub- 

 divisions or classes ; and the classes into which they seem 

 to divide themselves are — 



1. Hill grazings and pasture lands, in which a great breadth 

 of land that has been and is at present under arable cultivation 

 may be included. 



2. Light or easy lands, which are suitable for the growth of 

 oats and barley, turnips, potatoes, and grass. 



