316 = 50 
British Agriculture. 
The Scotch 
landowner 
better trained 
to his business, 
this, but, on the other hand, entails are more strict, and land is 
understood to be more heavily mortgaged than in England, so 
that in these respects Scotland has no advantage. It was this 
greater disability of the entailed Scotch proprietor which drove 
him earlier to seek a remedy. A little more than a century ago, 
in 1770, the first Improvement of Land Act was passed, the 
famous Montgomery Act, the preamble of which clearly explains 
its origin. " Whereas much mischief arises to the public, which 
must daily increase so long as the law allowing such entails sub- 
sists, if some remedy be not provided," and then it provided a 
remedy very similar in principle to the drainage Acts passed 
for both countries eighty years later. But the power of raising 
money would not alone have sufficed. It was necessary also to 
take care that that money should be wisely expended, and the 
astute heads who devised the Montgomery Act enlisted the aid 
of the tenant-farmers, by giving them the security of nineteen 
years' leases, and thus obtaining their co-operation in the exe- 
cution of the works, and in the subsequent operations necessary to 
make them remunerative. This co-operation between landlord 
and tenant in Scotland had been in full action for more than two 
generations before the Drainage Loans introduced by Sir Robert 
Peel in 1848, when both landlord and tenant in Scotland at once 
eagerly availed themselves of the very liberal terms on which' 
these were offered ; and that goes on to this day. The facilities 
given by the Improvement of Land Act, 1864, which enables 
limited landowners to operate with their own means without the 
intervention of the Improvement Companies, were at once recog- 
nised in Scotland, which has availed itself of them to an extent 
six times greater, in proportion, than England. In Scotland, as 
was stated by one of the witnesses, " the tenants are practically! 
the applicants for improvement loans." They readily meet their 
landlords much more than halfway in contributing to the repay- 
ment ; and instead of lagging behind, or waiting to be spurred 
on to further enterprise, they compete even too much with each 
other for the possession of farms on terms which have now become 
more remunerative to the landowners than to themselves. Then 
is not in England, generally, a similar spirit of agricultura 
enterprise. 
To what is this difference between the two countries to b( 
attributed ? Chiefly to three causes, in which the Scotch land 
owner has the advantage : earlier education in, and appreciatioi 
of, the benefits of land improvement ; a better knowledge of th 
business of land owning ; and the general system of leases. T 
the first, reference has already been made. The better know 
ledge of their business has naturally flowed from it to the Scotc 
landowners. They are trained to it by fathers who have bee 
