n 



Agriculture of Scotland, 



viewj that we endeavour to ascertain, so far as we are able, the 

 money value Avhich the land of certain localities and descriptions 

 yielded at the time under review, leaving it to those who are 

 curious in such discussions to draw their own conclusions. 



In East Lothian, where arable culture was at this epoch most 

 extensively practised, many of the rents were still payable in 

 grain ; but, estimating the amount according to the then average 

 value of corn, the best lands near the coast (the rotation prac- 

 tised in some of which we have given, being partly occupied 

 in the growth of turnips) yielded from 26s. to 30s. per Scots 

 acre, this acre being about a fifth more than the English statute 

 measure. Farther inland, and where the soil was stronger, but of 

 a mixed character, several farms, now considered equal to any of 

 this description in the county, appear to have been let at a money 

 rent of from 21s. to 26s. One farmer, occupying 1800 acres be- 

 tween the shore and the county- town, to whom we have already 

 alluded, paid upwards of 1600/. for his possession. In the higher 

 parts of the district, 12s. and 14^. per acre were common rents; 

 and it has been estimated that three-fourths of the arable part of 

 the county were rented at not above 1 5s. per acre, at this era. The 

 current leases of some of the finest lands upon the coast, east- 

 ward from Dunbar, belonging to the Dirleton estates, we find it 

 stated * were entered upon about ten years before, at a rent of 

 30s. per acre. These rents," it is added, " were formerly paid 

 in grain ; and, calculating the value of that grain according to 

 the fiars (average) of the preceding twenty-one years, a consi- 

 derable rise of rent appeared, though, as the value of grain gra- 

 dually advanced, the rise was more nominal than real." f In 

 Mid Lothian, — where no advantage accrued from vicinity to 

 towns, — and in West Lothian, the rents of good lands varied from 

 21s. to 30.y. per Scots acre. 



Some of what are considered the best farms in Berwiclishire 

 now were then let at about 10s. per English acre; while 

 others, not esteemed at present so good, though also of a supe- 

 rior description, yielded nearly 15^\ In that part of Rox- 

 burghshire adjoining, those farms where culture had made some 

 progress, and possessing no extraneous advantages, were rented 



* Farmer's Magazine, vol. xii. p. 346. 



t From the romparatively advanced state which agriculture had attained 

 in East Lothian at this time, there is perhaps less dittererice in the amount 

 of rents there now than in any other part uf Scotland ; and it is believed 

 that many of the farms above alluded to, though very much higher-rented 

 during the war of the French Revolution, at the conversion to grain-rents 

 which took place in so many instances subsequently, from the low price of 

 corn, for some years after yielded very little more than the sums above 

 stated. 



