Estate Management in the Eighteenth Century. 151 



them with stone and mortar, and the door cheeks with stone and 

 lime, may give in notes of the quantity and kind of timber the 

 same would require to the factors, who are desired to view and 

 consider the same, it being intended for their encouragement to 

 give them such assistance of timber as can be spared from the 

 woods; but to prevent embezzlement or impositions every tenant 

 at receiving what timber may be ordered for him is to give his 

 bill for the full value thereof, which will not be given up till the 

 repairations are finished and inspected, to see that the timber has 

 been properly applied, and if any misapprehension shall be dis- 

 covered the value of the whole will be exacted. If any of the 

 tenants shall propose to build their houses with mortar and all 

 the doors and windows with stone and lime, and to cast the whole 

 walls with lime, they will be preferred to the best timber. No 

 timber will be given out of the woods after the first day of May 

 till winter again." 



The next entry explains itself : — 



" 1769, Sept. — When the Curator took the management of 

 the estates in 1758 he found the whole tenants' houses upon the 

 estates, in general, very bad and in great disrepair, and after 

 having set the leases, in order to encourage the tenants to make 

 better houses, he ordered that whosoever should build new ones 

 according to the rules prescribed should be furnished with timber 

 out of the woods, but the Marquis was to be at no expense in 

 repairs. This had the desired effect in so far that a good many 

 new houses were built and of a much better kind than formerly, 

 and in the year 1767, Avhen the leases were to be renewed, it was 

 considered that if a tenant who had bestowed a good deal upon 

 his houses should not happen to take the same farm again it 

 would be a hardship, if, after a few years' possession, he should 

 lose all he had bestowed upon the houses, and would effectually 

 stop the spirit of building that had been. To prevent which the 

 Curator declared in all such cases that a reasonable allowance 

 should be made to the outgoing tenant." 



Still the Tutor is not satisfied, and finality (so far as the 

 Journal shows) is not reached until he takes the rebuilding and 

 repairing of the houses on the estate " upon his own charges." 



The following being the entry, which is dated 8th April, 

 1772:— 



" In order to encourage the tenants to build good houses on 



