Report on some features of Scottish Agriculture. 153 
These considerations influence the system of cultivation pursued 
on most Scotch arable farms, and they are, therefore, my reason 
for referring to the subject. The Scotch farmer, when he enters 
on a farm, has a problem to solve which does not often present 
itself to the mind of an occupier of land in Entjland. He has 
made a strictly commercial bargain with his landlord, and, as a 
man of business, he immediately sets himself to work to make 
the most of it. The landlord does the same ; and this is one 
reason why the game question is such a sore point across the 
Border. But this by the way. The farmer finds his land in as 
poor a condition as his predecessor could possibly reduce it to, 
having due regard to the conditions of his lease. His experience 
has taught him that the most pro^fitable thing to be done is to 
put " condition " into his land as fast as he can do it without 
endangering any crop, and then to keep up that condition until 
the commencement of his last shift of 5 or 6 years, as the case 
may be, when he steadily and scientifically devotes himself to 
the task of taking as much out of the land as he dare, in the 
face of the restrictiv'e covenants of his lease. It is not that he 
has any particular desire to rob the land, but he wishes both 
to recoup his own outlay, in view of the contingency of his 
lease not being renewed, and also to reduce as much as possible 
the competition for the farm. 
It will thus be seen that when a man of capital becomes the 
occupier of a farm under the Scotch system of leases, a con- 
siderable national benefit is one result ; because, for 15 or 16 
years out of 21, the farm is managed with a view to its yielding 
the greatest amount of produce, without injury to the land, that 
can be obtained by means of the most advanced practice and 
the most accurate science known to the farmer. The main 
drawback is that for the first few years, and the last 5 or 6, the 
produce is not so great as it should be, because, at the com- 
mencement of a lease, a farm is almost always poor in condition, 
and towards its termination the efforts of the farmer are directed 
towards its reduction to its original poverty. 
The difference in the competition for farms left in a tolerably 
high condition, as compared with those left in a more or less 
exhausted and dirty state, is greater than appears at first sight • 
and this is one of the gravest charges laid against the hypothec 
law, A man of straw, with nothing to lose, will bid an extra- 
vagant rent for a farm in good condition. The hypothec law 
has no terrors for him ; and he can, at any rate, get a few years' 
living out of the farm. On the other hand the landlord lets the 
farm, resting on the security of the law of hypothec, and not 
unfreciuently he is said to obtain his rent at the expense of those 
who have given " credit " to the farmer on the strength of his. 
being the occupier of a certain number of acres. 
