16 Notes and Sketches. 



keep good neighbourhood" in the way already explained 

 in carrying on the common tillage operations. Again, 

 in the rental of the Bishopric of Aberdeen (date 1511), 

 under the conditions of sub-letting on the lands of 

 Fetternear, " a crofter was bound to build one rood of 

 the fold for every cow which he had in the town of his 

 master. The tenants were answerable for the conduct 

 of their crofters in the grazing of their cows and in other 

 things that belonged to good neighbourhood." Prob- 

 ably, as time went on, arid the Church lands had passed 

 to other owners, the prevailing regulations were neither 

 better systematised nor more regularly enforced, but 

 rather the opposite. The mode in which the Church 

 lands were dealt with at the Keforniation did not reflect 

 credit on those more immediately concerned. John 

 Knox, in his History, speaks of some of the " nobilitie" 

 who " had greadelie gripped to the possessionis of the 

 Kirk," and done other selfish deeds despite the rebukes 

 of the preachers ; and in point of fact a number of the 

 ostensible lay adherents of the Eeformation, upon con- 

 veyances from the prelates, or in their office as " com- 

 mendators," unscrupulously seized the temporalities of 

 the Church, and, with equal indecency, turned out the 

 old occupants of the land as they saw fit in order that 

 they might fill their places with a subservient following 

 of their own friends and dependants. These were 

 hardly the men to encourage and foster honest industry 

 in any shape ; and for a time the peaceable and in- 

 dustrious cultivators of the soil, in many cases, suffered 

 not a little injustice and oppression at their hands. 

 Still, in its main features, the agricultural economy of 

 the country seems to have undergone but little change 

 for a very long period. At the earliest date to which 

 we have referred, the different grades in the rural com- 

 munity had recognition ; and their relations to each 

 other, from the landowning class of ecclesiastics, barons, 

 or lairds, and principal occupiers, to the humble cottar, 

 who mainly represented labour, were distinctly under- 



