124 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. Paut I. 



From the British colonies in America, corn may be imported for home-consumption, 

 without payment of any duty, when the prices are at or above, wheat, 67s.; rye, pease, 

 and beans, 44s. ; barley, bear, or bigg, 33s. ; and oats, 22s. per quarter. Ahiiost 

 all the restrictions on the inland corn trade were removed by the act, 1772 ; and the 

 more just views of the present age have given freedom to the trade, in point of fact, 

 though some of the old laws against forestalling, &c,, are still unrepealed. Yet it is not 

 many years since punishments were inflicted for these imaginary crimes. {Ency. Brit^ 

 art. Agr.) 



749. Agriculture in Scotland was at a low ebb at the period of the revolution. " The 

 calamity of that evil had so oppressed the tenantry of Scotland, that many farms re- 

 mained unoccupied. Proprietors were then as eager in searching after tenants who were 

 able to stock and cultivate the ground, as farmers are now assiduous in seeking after 

 farms. Improvements began to be made soon after the union, especially by some gentle- 

 men of East Lothian, and by the efforts of the agricultural society of Scotland, established 

 in 1723. It was now found beneficial to grant long leases, which were found greatly 

 to increase the skill and industry of the tenants, by rendering them secure of enjoying 

 the benefit of their improvements. A great stimulus was also given to farmers by the 

 money circulated during the rebellion of 1745, which raised prices, and increased the 

 tenants* capital stock. 



750. A desire to imjrrove the roads of Scotland now began to manifest itself among the 

 proprietors. The first act of parliament for collecting tolls on the highways in Scotland, 

 was passed in 1750, for repairing the road from Dunglass bridge to Haddington. In 

 ten years after, several acts followed for the counties of Edinburgh and Lanark, and for 

 making the roads between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The benefit which agriculture has 

 derived from good roads it would not be easy to estimate. The want of them was one 

 great cause of the slow progress of the art in former times. At present, all the improve- 

 ments introduced by M'Adam in the construction and preservation of the roads of 

 England, are spreading with equal rapidity and good effect in Scotland. 



751. The relaxing of the rigor of entails, and abrogating the feudal si/stem greatly bene- 

 fited the agriculture of Scotland. The first was eflfected by an act in 1770, which re- 

 laxed the rigor of strict entails, and extended the powers of proprietors, in so far as 

 regards the improvement of their estates, and the granting of leases. The legal ab- 

 rogation of the feudal system, by passing the jurisdiction act, was of material ad- 

 vantage, in so far as the security of cultivators was thus increased, and their situation 

 rendered infinitely more independent than in former times. 



752v But the general progress of agriculture in Britain from the revolution to the 

 middle of the eighteenth century, was by no means so considerable as from the great 

 exportation of corn we should be led to imagine. The gradual advance in the price of 

 land produce, soon after the year 1 760, occasioned by the increase of population, and 

 of wealth derived from manufactures and commerce, has given a more powerful stimulus 

 to rural industry, augmented agricultural capital in a greater degree, and called forth 

 a more skilful and enterprising race of cultivators, than all the laws for regulating the 

 corn trade could ever have effected. Most of the inventions for increasing produce and 

 ecbnomising labor have either been introduced, or improved and greatly extended since 

 that time ; and by means of both, the free surplus has been vastly increased for the supply 

 of the general consumption. The passing of more than three thousand bills of inclosure, 

 in the late reign, is a proof how much more rapidly the cultivation of new land has 

 proceeded than in the former period ; and the garden-like appearance of the country, as 

 well as the striking improvement in the condition of all classes of the rural population, 

 display, in the most decided manner, the skill and the success with which this great 

 branch of national industry is now followed throughout the greater part of Britain." 



753. Since the conclusion of the American war in 1782, ** improvement has pro- 

 ceeded with singular rapidity in every district ; and while the rental rolls of proprietors 

 have been doubled, tripled, and quadrupled, the condition of the tenantry, and of the 

 lower ranks, has been ameliorated almost in a proportional degree." {Ed. Enci/. art. 

 Agr.) 



754. Since the peace of 1815, agriculture has sustained a severe shock from the fall of 

 prices, occasioned by the lessened circulation of currency, the necessary preliminary to a 

 return to a currency of the precious metals. In this shock many hundreds of farmers lost all 

 their capital, and were obliged to become operatives to others ; while some, more fortunate, 

 contrived to retain as much of the wreck of their property as enabled them to emigrate to 

 other countries. Cleghorn, whose pamphlet on the depressed state of agriculture was 

 honored with the prize of the Highland Society of Scotland, thinks this loss cannot have 

 been less than one year's rental of the whole island. " The replies sent to the circular 

 letter of the Board of Agriculture, regarding the agricultural state of the kingdom, in 

 February, March, and April, 1819, furnish a body of evidence which cannot be contro- 

 verted, and exhibit a picture of widely spread ruin among the agricultural classes, and of 



