438 AGRICULTURE. 



greater importance than that of a cultivator of the ground. But 

 the ecclesiastical lands were considerably improved, and the 

 tenants of them were generally much more comfortably circum- 

 stanced than those upon the estates of the laymen. The reforma- 

 tion of religion, beneficial as it was in other respects, rather 

 checked than promoted agricultural improvements, because the 

 change of property which then occurred occasioned a similar 

 change of tenantry, and almost took husbandry out of the hands 

 of the monks, the only class of people by whom it was practised 

 upon correct principles. The dissolution of the monasteries and 

 other religious houses was also attended with injurious conse- 

 quences in the first instance ; though latterly the greatest bene- 

 fit had been derived from tithes and church lands having come 

 into the hands of laymen. It is probable that, had not these 

 circumstances occurred, a tithe system would still have remained 

 in force, and Scottish husbandry would have continued under 

 a burden which sinks and oppresses the cultivators in England 

 and Ireland. But tithes having got into the hands of lay 

 titulars, or impropriators, were in general collected or formed 

 with such severity as to occasion the most grievous complaints, 

 not only from the tenantry but also from the numerous class of 

 proprietors, who had not been so fortunate as to procure a share 

 of the general spoil. This, added to the desire shown by the 

 crown to resume the grants made when its power was compara- 

 tively feeble, occasioned the celebrated submission to Charles I., 

 which ended in a settlement that, in modern times, has proved 

 highly beneficial, not only to the interests of the proprietors, 

 but likewise to general improvement. Tithes are a burden, 

 which operate as a tax upon industry, though it was a long 

 time before the beneficial consequences of withdrawing them 

 were fully understood. 



Of the state of agriculture in Scotland, during the seventeenth 

 century, very little is known. No professed treatise on the 

 subject appeared till after the revolution. The southeastern 

 counties were the earliest improved ; and yet, in 1660, their 

 condition seems to have been very wretched. Ray, who made 

 a tour along the eastern coast in that year, says : " We observed 

 little or no fallow grounds in Scotland ; some ley ground we 

 saw, which they manured with sea-wrack. The men seemed to 



