

CHAPTER III. 



RURAL OCCUPATION OLD LAND MEASURES THE PLOUGH- 

 GATE AND DAVOCH EARLY LAND LAWS EMANCIPATION 



OF THE NATIVI OR SERFS REMAINS OF EARLY OCCUPA- 

 TION IN SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 



IN early notices of agricultural matters, we now and 

 again stumble upon such expressions relative to the 

 measurements of land as " oxgate," " ploughgate," 

 " forty-shilling land," and somewhat more rarely, 

 " davoch." By the learned industry of Mr. Cosmo 

 Innes, it has been settled " beyond reasonable doubt," 

 that an oxgate meant 1 3 acres. A ploughgate consisted 

 of 104 acres it and the forty-shilling land being 

 equivalents and the davoch was " as much as four 

 ploughs could till in a year."* There was, too, the 

 " husband land," which consisted of 26 acres, being the 

 extent of land held by a single husbandman. Each 

 husbandman furnished two oxen to the common plough, 

 and, with the four pairs thus supplied, the ploughgate, 

 which was a joint occupancy, was tilled. This principle 

 of joint holdings, which found its extreme development 

 in the "run rig" system, where two tenants cultivated 

 alternate ridges on the same field, was well fitted to breed 

 difficulties in the practical business of cultivation ; and 

 so the overlords had rules of " good neighbourhood " 

 established, under which the several tenants were bound 

 to perform their respective shares of the farm labour at 

 the sight of " birley men " chosen by themselves. 



* Strathbogie was of old divided into forty-eight davochs, each 

 containing as much as four ploughs could till in a year. (Antiq. 

 Shires, vol. IV.) Hence the phrase " the aucht-an'-forty dauch." 



