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two separate fees for these, then two separate rents 

 would be raised from the one piece of brain belonging 

 tb Professor Mackinnon. In like manner, it is very 

 common, and quite as just, that proprietors get one 

 rent for the minerals underneath the surface of a piece 

 of land, and another rent for that surface itself. Nor 

 is this all : it is quite common also that the surface, 

 should be let for two or more distinct purposes, each 

 kind of use bearing its own value. Tenants also very 

 often get two or more sub-rents for the same piece of 

 land. It may bring one rent for hay at one season of 

 the year, and another rent for the " wintering of sheep" 

 at another season of the year ; and so on through in- 

 numerable varieties of circumstances of which Professor 

 Mackinnon seems to be almost as ignorant as I am of 

 Celtic etymology. But in reality, the particular case of 

 *' double rent " which troubled the Professor in Tyree is 

 no case at all. The Seaweed Company does not itself 

 dry the seaweed. It contracts with the poorer crofters 

 and cottars of the Island, according to ancient usage, 

 for collection and drying of the seaweed, and those 

 who take the contract spread out the seaweed, not 

 on the arable land or enclosed fields of the crofters, 

 but on the extensive " links " of common pasture which . 

 girdle the shore almost all round the Island. With , 

 this usage, which is as old as the trade in kelp — about 

 1 50 years — individual crofters who may not happen 

 to have any interest in kelp have no more right to 

 interfere, than with any other condition of custom, — 

 or of use and wont, — under which they have always 

 held their lands. No separate rent is paid to me 

 in respect of this usage ; and besides, it is well 

 known that the spreading of seaware upon pasture, 



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