2s6 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



butcher to have more than one acre of land for grazing unless it be tilled 

 annually, under penalty of £ioo Scots for each offence, loss of the cattle 

 found grazing and loss of the freedom of the burgh. Public health and 

 amenity were not overlooked, for to improve the aspect of the country, 

 check malaria and provide shelter, all freeholders were required (1457) 

 to plant on their land trees, hedges, and broom. Nearly two hundred and 

 fifty years later (1695) an Act for the preservation of meadow lands and 

 pasturages near sandhills forbids the pulling up of bent, juniper and 

 broom. 



The necessity of keeping down weeds was recognised in the statute 

 which required the cleansing of land from ' guld,' i.e. marigold. The Act, 

 with a touch of humour now sadly lacking in modern statutes, sets forth 

 that anyone who planted ' guld ' deserved punishment as amply as if he 

 had led an army against the king and barons. 



Pig-feeding was discouraged. No burgess could permit swine to remain 

 in the fields without a keeper and they had to be kept out of plantations 

 and hunting ground, while it was decreed by Parliament that the owner 

 of a hog which made a hole in a meadow or open place should be compelled 

 to fill the hole with grains of wheat. 



Security of tenure is a subject of which we still hear. In the middle 

 of the fifteenth century (1449) there was passed what might almost be 

 called the first of the Agricultural Holdings Acts. It provided that ' for 

 the safetie and favour of the puir papil that labouris the grunde, that thay 

 and all utheris sail remaine with their tackes unto the ischew of their 

 termes, quhais hands that ever thay landis cum to.' In other words, 

 a change of ownership of the lands did not involve the dispossession of the 

 sitting tenants. Our present law restricting the period for ' making 

 muirburn,' i.e. heather burning, goes back, with some difference of the 

 dates, to at least 1400. 



Storage of grain, a measure now advocated by some for purposes of 

 defence, was not considered desirable in the fifteenth and sixteenth 

 centuries, for in 1449 it was enacted that ' to prevent dearth,' no old stacks 

 of corn were to be kept in the yard after Christmas ; in 1452 the date was 

 extended to the end of May ; and in 1563 to the loth of July. 



These few examples of how in the past the State has laid its hand, 

 sometimes heavily, sometimes helpfully, on agriculture are obviously 

 very far from exhaustive and are not intended in any way to constitute 

 a historic survey. They have been selected almost at random, to show 

 that intervention — call it interference if you will — however much we may 

 think we suffer from it to-day, is no new thing. You will observe that the 

 intervention was almost all of the compulsory kind, the single exception 

 among the instances quoted being the Scottish Act conferring a degree of 

 security of tenure. My second category is not represented and there is 

 no bestowal of direct benefits such as subsidies, etc. 



Having glanced at some precedents, let us consider the present state 

 of affairs. We are all, of course, subject to State control of various 

 kinds ; we must educate our children, pay income-tax, drive our cars 

 carefully, refrain from buying or selling certain goods after certain hours, 

 and so on. Some people think we have far too much of such control, 



