02 STATISTICAL SURVEY 



fizc from five to fifty acres, and they are much 

 greater in the mountainous parts. 



In thofe eftates for many years back, leafes of no 

 more than twenty-one years could be given by the 

 two laft proprietors; yet, notwithftanding, the tenants 

 went on with fpirit and induftry, in the improvement 

 of their farms; this they did, from a confidence they 

 had in a good old modus, namely, that their land 

 would never be given away to another tenant, fo long 

 as they were able and willing to pay a reafonable 

 raifed rent ; this confideration has had alfo a good ef- 

 fect, with refpeft to dividing the town-lands into fub- 

 <!ivifions, fo as that each individual knew his own 

 part to a certainty. It is now in contemplation to give 

 leafes of lives and thirty-one years, which, no doubt, 

 will be found a more powerful inducement for the te- 

 nants to improve their farms, than the prefent fyflem 

 of twenty-one years. 



As a fpecimen of the induftry of the tenantry 

 of the Newtown-ftcwart eftate (confiding of near 

 twenty-four thoufand plantation acres) perhaps in this 

 place it may not be improper to ftate the following 

 fact, which I can vouch from my own kuo\vledge. 



From 1795 to 1799, both y ears included, it is well 

 known, that the difpofitions of the yeomanry of the 

 kingdom were but very little turned towards improve- 

 ments, at leaft by far the greater part of them ; yet 

 Vithin the above periods, I have given, from the nur- 



feries 



