sect. in. THE COUNTY" OP FIFE. 95 



hand, tenants who are on the outlook for farms,and 

 impatient to fix, incompetent judges perhaps of 

 the quality of the ground, or cherishing too san- 

 guine expectations from their own industry and 

 skill, are induced, especially if spurred on by 

 competition, to come up to the landlord's terms. 



Formerly rent was made payable partly in mo- 

 ney and partly in kind. The tenant was, be- 

 sides, obliged to pay a certain number of poul- 

 try, to furnish a certain number of carnages, and 

 sometimes to send a certain number of hands in 

 harvest to assist in cutting down the landlord's 

 corn. Of late, however, gentlemen, considering 

 rent in kind as a troublesome concern, and of 

 uncertain value, and wishing to have a fixed and 

 known rental, have, in almost all the new leases, 

 converted the whole rent into money, except the 

 victual due to the minister, which the tenant is 

 still obliged to pay, and for whichj if not consi- 

 dered as a part of the stipulated rent, he is al- 

 lowed a deduction, the price of the victual being 

 regulated by the fiars of the county. 



Were I permitted to give my opinion upon 

 a fubjed:, of which I profess not to be a com- 

 petent judge, it would be, that the rent of eyery 

 arable farm should be fixed in kind, the ipsa 

 corpora, at the same time, not to be delivered to 

 the landlord, but to be paid for in money, accor- 

 ding to the rate of the fiars. To this plan, I 

 know, some gentlemen object, because, from the 

 variableness and uncertainty of prices, they can 

 never have a certain and known rental, and con- 

 sequently must ever be at a logs how to regulate 

 their expenditure. But this objection is easily 

 obviated. Let th^ir expenditure be regulated 



