288 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



double that is to say, 180 of rent. In the Highlands 

 there are farms of many thousand acres each ; but we 

 find a number in the Lowlands of not more than fifty ; 

 and thousands of acres in the north often yield less to 

 the proprietor or tenant than fifty situated in the fertile 

 country around Edinburgh and Perth. 



The usual practice of tenure in Scotland is much supe- 

 rior to that which exists in England. Leases, in place 

 of being annual, are mostly for nineteen years. This 

 material difference proceeds from various causes. In 

 the first place, the Scotch proprietors attach less im- 

 portance than the English to the power of influencing 

 the votes of their tenants, there being less of party spirit 

 and politics among them. Then, again, the rise of agri- 

 culture in Scotland being of more recent date, the old 

 practice of tenancy at will has not had time to establish 

 itself, while the preferable use of long leases has been 

 prevalent from the first. We have already observed that 

 annual leases have not interfered much with England's 

 agricultural prosperity ; but had the other system been 

 introduced, it is probable that progress there would have 

 been still greater than it is : this, at least, is what we 

 may infer, judging from what has ensued in Scotland, 

 where, upon long leases, notwithstanding their poverty 

 and ignorance at starting, a few years have produced a 

 class of farmers equal, if not superior, to those who have 

 been farming for centuries in England. 



The Scotch farmers, who, generally speaking, were not 

 very well off a hundred years ago, are still a little inferior 

 to the English in point of capital. While the working 

 capital in England is 5 to 6 per acre, it is only 3 to 

 5 in the Lowlands, and 6s. to 10s. in the Highlands. 

 The Scotch, however, make up for the difference by their 

 greater economy, and by a greater amount of personal 



