"Landlords' rents" and "tenants' profits," or, Corn-farming in Scotland

SOUTHAMPTON
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

BOOK NUMBER

5'=)- 583 iH-

CLASS MARK

f e r.k.<<os

LANDLORDS' RENTS

TENANTS' PEOEITS;"

OR

CORK-FARMING IN SCOTLAND.

BY DAVID MONKO, Esq.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBUKGH AND LONDON
M D C C C X L I X

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

TO

HIS GRACE
THE DUKE OF MONTROSE,

PRESIDENT OF THE HIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL
SOCIETY OF SCOTLAND,

My Lord Duke,

A pamphlet has been lately pub-
lished, entitled "High Farming under Liberal Cove-
nants, the best Substitute for Protection," which is cal-
culated, I think, to mislead landed proprietors as to the
value of their estates, and tenant farmers, at least inex-
perienced ones, in the cultivation of their farms. I take
the liberty of addressing to you, my Lord Duke, the
President of the Highland Society of Scotland, the great
farming society of the country, a few remarks on what
I conceive to be fallacies, and dangerous ones too, in
Mr Caird's pamphlet, and to add a few observations of
my own on what I really conceive to be, in these days
of free trade, the probable profits to be derived from
corn-farming in Scotland, and what really may be done
for the farming interest to enable them to bear up

■HHHHHi

4 landlords' eents

against the difficulties they have now to contend with.
It is certainly the duty of every landlord and farmer
in this country to examine well a system under
which a farm of 260 acres without, it is said, any
peculiar advantage of soil, climate, or situation, yields
an annual average gross produce of £2518, or very
nearly £10 an acre, and a clear profit to the far-
mer, it is said, of £1000 sterling per annum. Such
results, in a business which has not hitherto been found
particularly money-making, must command attention,
and the fortunate inventor of the new science cannot
but have many followers. 1 believe, however, it will be
found that page 15 of the tract will explain the whole
matter, and a careful examination of the rotation there
stated will dispel the whole delusion of this Californian
agriculture.

The farm of Auchness in Wigtonshire, Mr Caird says,
is farmed in the following rotation, which I would call
a four-course rotation — viz. :

Acres.

1st Year, Turnips, . . . • 55

2d „ Wheat, 55

3d „ Italian Ryegrass, ... 55
ft In Oats, 301 ... 55

" In Potatoes, 25 )

220

In Potatoes, .... 40 reclaimed moss.
Total, 260

Mr Caird does not state the crops or money he
receives annually from the four-course rotation ; but he
very ingeniously lumps them altogether in the grand
total of £2518. I must, however, ask Mr Caird to
explain the peculiarity of this rotation, which has four
divisions always running the fair legitimate four-course

AND TENANTS' PROFITS.

5

shift, (except that he takes potatoes after grass,) and
into the bargain has a piece of moss-land of 40 acres,
apparently always carrying potatoes. Mr Caird, indeed,
says " the reclaimed moss-land is not cultivated in rota-
tion with the rest of the farm, as for some years it has
been found most profitable to take successive crops of
potatoes on it." Doubtless it has been found most
profitable to do so, and it has also been the means of
propagating a delusion of £10 an acre being got from
arable land, and a profit of £4 an acre being made by
the farmer of it. We must, however, examine this four-
course rotation; and, as. Mr Caird has not put down the
values opposite the crops, I will take the liberty of doing
so for him, and he will not have to complain of illibe-
rality, either in crops or money. To begin with his
turnip crop. He has 55 acres of turnips. We will put
him down for £330 for them, or £6 per acre, though
doubtless Mr M'Culloch, like others, has in some years
not made £2 an acre of them, unless indeed cattle and
sheep in Wigtonshire are sold warranted to leave a
profit. Next his 55 acres of wheat, in free-trade times,
he won't object to be put down at £12 per acre, or
£660 for the 55 acres. Then his 55 acres of clover
and pasture — £5 per acre is very fair payment for
grazing cattle or sheep, and I wish we could often get
it, this £270 ; 30 acres of oats, 9 quarters per acre, at
20s., £270. Thus—

55 acres of Turnips, £330

55 Wheat, 660

55 Clover, 270

30 Oats, 270

195 acres. £1530
I hope I may not have understated the crops got by

6

landlords' rents

Mr M'Culloch : it was indispensable for me to put sup-
posed values upon them, as lie did not state them, in
order to bring out how his great profits are made. We
have thus, in estimating his corn crops, and indeed all
his crops excepting potatoes, arrived at the sum of
£1530, leaving £1000 to be still accounted for. And
how, my Lord, do you think this is done? By putting
25 acres of his leas or grass under potatoes, and laying
40 acres of moss-land, year after year, under potatoes !
In this alone lies the grand secret of Mr Caird's high
and most remunerative farming, growing most exten-
sively the most uncertain root known, under a system
quite opposed to the acknowledged rules of good farming,
by which the same plant or grain should be as seldom as
possible repeated on the same land ; 65 acres of potatoes
upon a 260-acre farm, 40 acres of which to be perpetu-
ally growing them, appears to me to be one of the most
extraordinary propositions ever made to the agricultu-
rists of Britain ; and, though wishing to avoid a harsh
expression, I cannot help denouncing such a scheme as
a most unfair means of attempting to show a large
return from a farm, unheard-of profits to the farmer,
and advantages hitherto unknown to the consumer.
Not much more unfair would it be in me, or any exten-
sive farmer, to lay down all his farm in wheat, and,
were it in such a year as 1846-7, to announce, with a
flourish of trumpets, to the farming world, that now,
under a new system, £10,000 would be the gross pro-
ceeds of a farm yearly ! Some, indeed great, merit is
due to the farmer of Auchness, for his house-feeding
plan, his great expenditure in the purchase of manures,
and general high farming ; but, except the enormous
extent of the potato cultivation, the least to be depended
upon of all crops, there is nothing materially different

AND TENANTS' PROFITS.

7

in his management from what prevails in the best-culti-
vated farms throughout Scotland. The effects, however,
of this essay of Mr Caird's, will probably be, that land-
lords will become discontented with the rents they
receive, when told that such profits can be made by
farming; and, in attempting to follow his system, farmers
may suffer great losses ; for, were potatoes cultivated
to the extent Mr Caird recommends, and to thrive,
what a drug they would be ; and were they to fail, (as
would probably be the case,) what a loss to the farmers,
and the country generally, from the great extent of
ground laid under them, and the consequent displace-
ment of other and more certain crops ! I think, as a
set-off against Mr Caird's potato-farming, it will not
be ill-timed to state the result of twenty years' expe-
rience as to expenditure in farming; as also a statement
of the crops got on an average of many years back,
converted into money at present prices, the farm in an
average climate and average soil of Scotland ; and every
man can then judge for himself as to landlords' rents
and tenants' profits under a system of farming which
has taken root in Scotland, and which, I venture to say,
will not be easily displaced by the novelty of Auchness.
One begins to be a little suspicious of the extraordinary
profits one hears of, made by farming. I look upon the
majority of them as clap-traps, unattainable by the
farming community, either from the exorbitant expendi-
ture, or advantages of situation entirely exceptional to
the average arable farms of either England or Scot-
land. For instance, how many farms in Britain can
command 500 loads of sea-weed, or 2000 loads of
peat-moss, as the farm of Auchness does ? I hold
that, in bringing forward the example of a farm to
in some degree regulate the rents and show the profits of

8

landlords' rents

farming, one should be taken as nearly as possible pos-
sessing the average advantages of the country in situa-
tion, climate, and soil ; and that it is unfair to delude
landlords and tenants of inexperience by bringing for-
ward, as instances of what the whole country should be,
and might be, farms with great natural advantages, under
an impossible and impracticable system of cropping.
I think that a correct statement of the average annual
income and expenditure of a farm, such as farms are
over the country in well-farmed districts, is a desidera-
tum in agricultural statistics. One hears continually
remarks by landlords, inexperienced in agricultural
matters, on the great profits that must be made by
farmers. One says, " What enormous profits Farmer
Dodds must be making. I passed his farm the other
day, and saw a field of wheat which my factor assures
me cannot be worth less than £250." Another says,
" My tenant Hobbs must be actually coining money, for
I am informed that he the other day sold 20 bullocks at
£20 a-piece." Now, neither of these gentlemen knew
more about the expense at which the wheat was grown,
and the bullocks fatted, than did the bullocks them-
selves : they were under the impression that the princi-
pal items of deduction from the apparently great gross
proceeds of a farm were their comparatively small rents.
Nor are landlords the only deluded parties ; one half the
farmers, who are competitors for land, and spoil the
business for those who really understand it, as well as
injure themselves, are equally ignorant of the outgoings
of a farm till they acquire the knowledge, to their as-
tonishment, by dear-bought experience. Now, farming
is too important a business to be thus treated as a hap-
hazard, jump-in-the-dark affair: it is the great business,

AND TENANTS' PROFITS.

9

by far the most important business, of the country ; and
it invariably punishes those severely who attempt to
practise it and treat it with neglect. The day is past
for ever when it was thought and said that any man
could drive a gig and manage a farm : broken limbs
have falsified the one assertion, and broken purses the
other. But though agriculture is now looked upon with
a little more respect than formerly, still, from the desire
natural to man to cultivate mother earth, many under-
taking the business are utterly ignorant not only of the
ordinary and primary rules of farming, but of the outlay
required, and innumerable cases of disappointment and
ruin are the consequence. A kind of beacon to warn
such of their danger is, I think, required ; and it is with
this view that I submit the following statement of the
annual expenditure of a farm of 464 acres Scots, in a
northern county of Scotland, but in the average circum-
stances of the country as to climate, soil, distance from
markets, &c. &c. The district of country in which it is
situated is not quite so early as East Lothian, nor is
probably the soil so fertile, but it excels the climate of
the higher districts of the south of Scotland in fully as
great a degree as it falls short of that of the lowest dis-
tricts of the Lothians, the Carse of Stirling, or that of
Falkirk ; so that I am entitled to call it an average cli-
mate of thecountry. Onthis farm there is nothing-peculiar
in the mode of cropping but such as prevails on well-
cultivated farms throughout the country : 226 acres of
it are farmed on the six-course rotation, and 238 on the
five or two-years grass. All descriptions of grain and
roots commonly cultivated in Scotland enter into the
rotation ; and though situated as far north as lat. 57h
from its being only 20 feet above the sea-level, the

10

landlords' rents

4

climate is probably better than that of the average of
the arable land of Scotland.

Expense of Cultivating a Farm containing 464 Scotch
Arable Acres.

d, cattle-man, and |

qr.,
qr.,

Money-wages of greive, shepher

nine ploughmen,
Meal for ploughmen, 88 bolls,
Milk for ploughmen, &c,
Coals for ploughmen, &c,
Day-labourers for the year,
Wheat seed for 83 acres, 45 qrs., at 40s. per
Barley seed for 36 acres, 23 qrs., at 26s. per
Oat seed for S3 acres, 63 qrs., at 20s. per qr
Bean seed for 15 acres, 9 qrs., at 27s. per qr
Clover and ryegrass seeds for 84 acres, at 12s. per
Turnip seeds for 45 acres,
Harvesting crop, ....
Horse corn in the year, 100 qrs., at 16s
Smith's account for year, .
Saddler's account for year,
Carpenter's account for year,
Incidental expenses, such as tear and wear

barn implements, shipping of stock and corn, &c. &c,
Interest of money in live stock and farm implements,
which depreciate in value, at 1\ per cent on £1300,
Interest of money on stock, such as manure, fallow, ~f
which do not depreciate in >•

£118 5 0

28
8
145
90
29
63

12

50
6

122
80
30
10
10

of sacks,

grass, seed corn, &c.
value, 5 per cent on £1300,

7 tons of guano for turnips, (45 acres,) 3 cwts. per acre, )
7 tons guano, at £10, >

Lime for 20 acres fallow each year, upon an average of )
19 years, 30 bolls per acre, at 2s. per boll, £3 per acre, )

Farmers' poor-rates, 8d. per pound of rent, £700,

0
0
0
1
0

10
0
3
8

15
0
0
0
0
0

£1078 12

70 0

60 0
23 6

25 0 0

97 10 0

65 0 0

1
0

0
0

£1231 18 1

This sum, divided over the 464 acres, gives the annual
expense of labouring each acre of the farm, which is
£2, 12s. 8d. per Scotch acre, without any charge for
rent. In order to give landlords the advantage of fix-

AND TENANTS' PROFITS.

11

ing what that item of rent should be, I submit the fol-
lowing statement of crops, got, on an average of many-
years back, at present prices : —

Six-Course Rotation.

45 acres of turnips, £5 per acre,

£225

0

0

36 acres of barley, 6 qrs. per acre, at 23s. per qr.,

248

8

0

39 acres in hay, all used by horses, .

nil

38 acres in oats, 7 qrs. per acre, at 20s. per qr.,

266

0

0

(15 acres in beans, 4 qrs. per acre, at 27s. per qr.,

81

o

o

-<16 acres in potatoes, tares, &c, consumed by people

nil

37 acres in wheat. 5 qrs. per acre, at 40s. per qr.,

370

0

0

226 acres

£1190

8

0

Five-Course Rotation.

48 acres in bare fallow, .....

nil

47 acres in wheat, 5 qrs. per acre, at 40s.,

£470

0

0

47 acres in pasture, at £2 per acre, .

94

. 0

0

51 acres in pasture, at £1 per acre, .

51

0

0

45 acres in oats, 5 qrs. per acre, at 20s., .

225

"0

0

464 total acres. Total proceeds,

£2030

8

0

Deduct annual expenditure, .

1231

18

1

Loft to pay rent and farmers' profit,

£798

9

11

I must here make a few remarks on the above state-
ment of crops. The practical farmer will observe that
I have given the farm no credit for the hay or potato
crops ; but my reason for this is, that I have made no
charge against the farm for the hay used by horses, or for
the potatoes used by the ploughmen, &c, nor for the
tares used by the working stock. No more hay, pota-
toes, or tares being grown than what are consumed by
the working stock, it was unnecessary to enter any sum
for these in the returns of the produce of the farm, as
the same amount would have to be entered in the state-
ment of expenses, and would merely have the effect of

12

landlords' kents

swelling the figures without altering the result one
penny; and latterly, in particular, the potato having
proved a crop so extremely uncertain, it appeared to me
best to omit it altogether. It will also probably be said,
that, in the five-course rotation, bare fallows should be
superseded by turnips ; and, doubtless, were the soil of a
lighter description, such would be the case ; but I have
found, as probably other strong land farmers have done,
that a bare fallow, followed by wheat, will, on that
description of soil, even after having been drained, pay
better than turnips followed by barley. The returns from
both in money may be the same. For instance, the wheat
crop, after a bare fallow, will generally give £10 an acre;
the turnips, followed by barley, say turnips per acre £4,
10s.; barley 5 qrs. per acre, at 23s.=£5, 15s.; together,
£10, 5s. But, then, the preparation of the land for tur-
nips, the extra manure required, the excessive working
of the land after turnips to fit it for the barley crop, all
these throw the advantages altogether on the side of the
bare fallow and wheat, particularly when a sufficiency
of turnips can be grown on the farm without encroaching
on the bare fallow. This, of course, only refers to the
heavier description of soils ; but even on turnip soils, and
where turnips are uniformly taken instead of bare fallows,
the aggregate value of the crops of the five-years rotation
will not be found to exceed that of the above rotation of
bare fallow, wheat, two grasses, and oats. If this state-
ment of the produce and expenditure of a farm be cor-
rect, we can then come pretty near what rent the arable
land of the country can bear, and what profits in these
times farmers are likely to have from their business.
Total proceeds from 464 Scotch acres, £2030, 8s. ;
deduct annual expenditure, £1231, 18s. Id.; left to pay
landlord's rent and tenant's profit, £798, 9s. lid. Now,

AND TENANTS' PROFITS.

13

a very common rent in Scotland, and perhaps more under
than above that of the average of the country, is 30s.
per Scotch acre. This, over 464 acres, will give the
sum of £696 as rent, which, deducted from £798, the
excess of income over expenditure of the farm, will leave
£102 as the farmer's profit, or 4s. 4d. per acre."" A
startling difference this, certainly, from that made by the
tenant of Auchness ; but, notwithstanding, I venture to
say, that this statement will be confirmed by the majo-
rity of Scottish farmers; and I will be so bold as to
affirm that, since the fall in the price of farm produce,
for one farmer who has made more profit than this, fifty
have made less. I have, in this statement, omitted
altogether casualties to which farmers are liable, such as
destruction of crops by hail, rain, wind, and floods,
pleura among cattle, and rot among sheep, and the
ever-recurring accidents to the working stock of a farm.

I have thus endeavoured to lay before the farming
community, the landlords in particular, a plain, unvar-
nished statement of the bona fide income and expendi-
ture of a farm at present prices, present wages, and
present rents, in an average soil and climate of Scot-
land, without any advantage of markets, or any other
peculiarity in the situation to raise the value of land ;
and I trust it may have the effect of showing landlords,
unacquainted with agriculture, what they should really

Since the above was written, wheat has fallen in price in this neighbourhood
from 40s to 33s. per quarier; barley from 23s. to 21s.; and oats from 20s. to 18s.
The gross proceeds are thus reduced from £2030, 8s. to £1874, 10s. The ex-
pense of working the farm £1231, 18s. Id., and the rent £696, remaining as
before, without any diminution, except the reduced value of the seed sown, which
will make a difference of £20, 13s., the account will then stand thus :—

Gross proceeds, 10 °

Expenses and rent, 1907 5

Loss to a tenant farmer by farming this farm, . £32 15 1

14 landlords' rents

#

get for their lands, and inexperienced tenants what they
should really pay. And if this letter should have the
effect of imparting information to either class, I shall
have my reward. What appears to me as nationally
desirable, is not apparently great returns of produce
from impracticable, almost impossible, rotations of crop-
ing, (the result of an outlay of money more fitted for
millionnaires than tenant farmers,) but a full development
of the capabilities of the soil by the application to it of
such an amount of capital as will remunerate the
farmer. We could grow the sugar-cane, and cultivate the
grape in Scotland, but would it pay to do so ? In like
manner, would it pay either to grow a crop of wheat of
probably 3 qrs. per acre, by an expenditure of £4 or £5 ?
I look with suspicion upon all enormous returns from ex-
travagant cultivation ; buying the crop by the outlay on
manures is not the business of the farmer ; such amuse-
ments should be left to amateur farmers, like the English
clergyman who grew Swedish turnips on a deal board ;
nor can I, as a Scottish farmer, feel much indebted to
Mr Caird for advising me to lay one-fourth of my farm
under potatoes, seeing that my 7 acres this year are not
worth the raising : I cannot hold such a suggestion as
an equivalent for the withdrawal of protection.

I do not deny that the farming of the Lothians will
prove some protection to the farmer of the south of Eng-
land if adopted by him, because by it he will increase
his produce and diminish his expenditure by a much
greater amount than will the fall in the price of produce
affect him. The substitution of two horses for four in
working his land, improved rotations of cropping,
thrashing by steam instead of by the flail, the enlarge-
ment of fields and removal of fences and hedge-row
timber, and many other improved modes of tillage, un-

AND TENANTS' PROFITS. 15

K

i

known or unpractised in the south of England, will in
time go far to compensate the English farmer for the with-
drawal of protection ; hut from the Scotch farmer, who
was " up to the mark " before, and was rented accord-
ingly, who farmed as highly as it was safe for him to
do without endangering his crops by over-luxuriance,
" the crutch," rotten though it may have been, has been
withdrawn, and Mr Caird's potato crutch has proved
equally rotten, and been even a more unsafe substitute.
That this withdrawal of protection was inevitable, is
generally admitted ; and probably the effect of it may
not be so disastrous as farmers anticipate ; but that for
it, or in lieu rather of it, a more extensive growth of
the most uncertain plant known should have been
recommended, appears almost incredible. That the
root which statesmen, political economists, and agri-
culturists blame for the great degradation and misery
of Ireland, should, by a practical farmer, be recom-
mended to be cultivated to the extent of one-fourth
of the whole arable land of Britain, is one of the
most astounding and unaccountable facts, I will venture
to say, on record.

It is with the greatest diffidence that I venture
upon naming a possible substitute for the withdrawn
protection in lieu of the potato farming recommended
by Mr Caird; but in stating what I have myself found,
as a practical farmer, most injurious to my success and
profits, I cannot be very far wrong in attributing to the
removal of these, some compensation for the unlimited
competition we are now exposed to in the production
of food. In looking at the state of agriculture in Bri-
tain, some things calculated to improve it, and benefit
those who practise it, appear to be in the power of the
landlords to bestow ; other remedies, in that of the

16

landlords' eexts

Legislature of the country. I shall first state the
former.

1st I take it for granted that an estate is in a fan-
condition as to tillage, with proper buildings, &c, for
carrying on the business of farming, and that the land-
lord is willing to grant a lease of nineteen or twenty-
one years of the different farms. Without such a lease
(universal in Scotland, but not so in England) I conceive
that a man would be insane to rent land ; and that the
very fact of his holding land without such, infers not
only insecurity of reaping the reward of his industry
and capital, but argues a degree of subservience and
serfdom inconsistent with the possession of abilities to
carry on any business with advantage. At present,
even on the majority of the best-managed estates in
Scotland, a rotation of cropping is prescribed for the
whole estate, irrespective of the difference of soils and
their suitableness for different crops; penalties are
exacted for any infringement of this prescribed rotation;
and the result is, that by this mistake landlords often
do not receive the rents they might do for their lands,
nor do tenants make the profits they should do by their
business. As an instance of this, I am acquainted with
a tenant farmer who took a farm on an estate where
the five-course rotation, with two years' grass, was the
prescribed rotation for the whole estate. The land was
heavy clay land, and quite unfit for such a rotation; and
the tenant, after some years' experience, finding his
second year's grass not worth one half the rent he paid
for the land, broke up his one year's grass for oats, and
intended, and properly too, to adopt the four or six
course rotation, with one year's grass. By his lease,
there was a heavy fine upon the breaking up grass, unless
two years out. The agent or factor counted the number of

AND TENANTS' PROFITS.

17

acres ploughed up, attached the prescribed penalty to
each, and sent the farmer a neat little account for £500!
On the other hand, a great risk would arise from letting
land without any prescribed rotation; and the only
security appears to be, the ascertaining exactly what
rotation is most suitable for a farm, most rent-paying
to the landlord, and consequently most profitable to the
farmer, — and prescribing that by the lease, fettering
him as little as possible, till near the termination
of his lease. As to a general rotation for a whole
estate, the thing is quite preposterous ; for one
will hardly find four adjoining farms, out of six,
suitable for exactly the same system of cropping.
But a much better security against deterioration of
land is to choose your tenant ; to make his skill
your "sine qud non" and not to trust to a rotation
of cropping which he may adhere to to the letter, but
break in the only sense you care about, viz., the condi-
tion of the land ; for a rotation may be strictly adhered
to, and land may still be foul, poor, and unproductive.
Landlords, hitherto, have looked upon their tenants
having a sufficient amount of capital as the most indis-
pensable thing; but important as, no doubt, it is, I will
put it second to practical knowledge. One of the most
successful farmers I ever knew, took a 300-acre farm
at a high rent, with only £700 of capital : his know-
ledge, even with the bankers, stood for capital. A
good farmer will easily grow a quarter per acre more
corn than a bad one upon the same land, (the difference
is often much greater.) Say that the " break " in white
corn of each is 200 acres : this will give 200 quarters
more corn grown by the good than by the bad farmer,
which, at 30s. per quarter, (say the average price of the
different kinds of com,) is £300 a-year. This, as security

B

18

landlords' rents

to the landlord, even for the payment of his rent, is
equal to a very large sum of money if owned hy the bad
farmer. I have myself experienced this; for I am receiv-
ing just now 35s. per acre for land on which the tenant
acknowledges that he is doing very well, and deserves to
do so, where his predecessor failed at 30s. per acre. Good
farming is thus not only the best security which landlords
can have for the payment of their rents, but also the best
security which the public can have for an abundant and
cheap supply of food. While the difference is thus so
great betwixt good and bad farming in Scotland, what
must it be in some of the English counties where
the farming is so bad, and at the same time so expen-
sive ! In showing an English squire lately a well-
farmed district in Scotland, his exclamation was,
" Where do you get the men who farm thus ? We, in
England, are thankful to get hold of a retired shop-
keeper, or publican, with some money in his pocket to
take our land, and we appear to have no such men in
the south as the occupiers of these beautifully cultivated
fields." It is the system of large farms held under
proper leases which has produced these men, and given
to Scotland its pre-eminence in agriculture. But while
much has been done, much remains still to be done ; for
in many counties of Scotland a great deal of bad farm-
ing is still seen, — the result of letting land to men unac-
quainted with farming, and tying them down to rota-
tions unadapted to the soils they occupy ; and in choos-
ing tenants for their skill, as much as for the rent they
offer, the agriculture of Scotland is still susceptible of
much improvement.

2d. The second mode of relief in the power of the
landlords to give their tenants, which I would propose,
is the diminishing of the quantity of game, and the total

AND TENANTS' PROFITS.

19

extirpation of rooks and wood-pigeons. With regard
to game, no farmer would grudge a fair proportion on
his farm, because it affords a rational amusement, and
induces the residence of landlords and country gentle-
men on their estates. It is only with the excess of
game, particularly hares and rabbits, that I quarrel; for
when farmers find that their turnip crops are sometimes
destroyed by one half their value, and that three hun-
dred or four hundred hares are not uncommon upon one
farm, costing the farmer, it is computed, 3s. 6d. each,
it is time to point this out as a real injury to agricul-
ture, and in the removal or reduction of which, farmers
would have a certain benefit. In respect of rooks and
wood-pigeons, I would proclaim complete extirpation and
no quarter, for they are unmitigated evils without the
vestige of good: they cost myself £20 a-year in endea-
vouring to keep them off my farm, besides head-money in
destroying them in the rookeries. This sum would pur-
chase guano to manure 15 acres of turnips, or drain 2 or
3 acres of wet land. A farmer who pays £700 a-year
of rent in this neighbourhood, assures me that the pro-
tecting inadequately his crops from the depredations of
these vermin, and the loss he sustains by them, costs
him more than his parochial assessments for the support
of the poor ; and in the district in which this farm is
situated, 6000 rooks were destroyed in spring 1849,
without any very apparent diminution of their numbers.
One gentleman in the neighbourhood, instead of being a
rook-destroyer, is a rook-preserver ; he rejoices in the
aristocratic " caw, caw," of this pest; and, notwithstand-
ing the petitions and remonstrances of his humble neigh-
bours, strictly preserves the robbers of their potato
patches. There exists a fallacy of these birds being
beneficial in destroying grubs and wire-worms, &c. I

20

landlords' bents

have proved that this is not the case ; for I have had
fields of oats, after old grass, completely ravaged by the
grub, and not a rook ever lighted on the field ; for at the
time of the greatest destruction by the grub, the rooks
are busy in hatching their young, and feed on grounds
adjacent to the rookeries. But were this even as it is
represented to be, the benefit would be dearly pur-
chased ; for at every season of the year the rook is a
depredator ; and in Scotland, where land hardly ever
exceeds two years in grass, grubs do but little injury,
and we keep up a certain evil for a most uncertain good.
I believe that, in the diminishing of the numbers of
game, and in the extirpation of rooks, rabbits, and wood-
pigeons, real tangible good would be done to the farmers
of Scotland ; and it would have this peculiar advantage,
that of being a great benefit to them, without cost or
loss to any one.

3d. The third remedy in the hands of the landlords is
the readjustment of rents according to the price of farm
produce. I am fully aware of the many and great diffi-
culties here. I know the inability of landlords to
reduce their rents in many cases, and of the amount of
ruin that would be sustained by themselves and their
dependents by their doing so. Twenty-five per cent of
the gross income of an estate is generally the proportion
of the rental of Scotland required for public burdens, and
private debts often absorb nearly the other three-fourths.
Reductions of rent by men so circumstanced is an im-
possibility. They must cling for the support of them-
selves and their families to the narrow margin which
remains, and liberality from them cannot be looked for.
The greater part, too, of the landed property of the coun-
try is under strict entail; so that, however convinced of
the necessity of giving reductions of rent landlords may

AND TENANTS' PROFITS.

21

be, the nature of the tenure prevents it. It is, how-
ever, difficult to see how landlords can resist making
some allowance to their tenants for the fall in prices. If
wheat is really to fall from an average of 50s. to an
average of 40s., barley from 28s. to 23s., and oats from
24s. to 18s., British landlords cannot expect their pre-
sent rents to be paid. Suppose a farmer, some years
ago, took a farm when wheat averaged 50s. per quarter,
and calculated the rent he should pay for it at 300
quarters of wheat ; this quantity, at 50s., gives £750 ;
the price falls to 40s., and he suffers a loss of £150 on
that quantity of wheat alone, (without counting the
reduced value of his other produce,) or, in other words,
has that much more rent to pay than he bargained for.
No doubt, in such years as 1846-7, when wheat was
selling at 90s. per quarter,- the farmers did not, on that
account, come forward and offer higher rents ; nor have
they, in this year 1849, when farming is notoriously a
most unprofitable business, any right to expect reduc-
tions of rent. They have had their " quid pro quo," and
have no right, as yet, to go to their landlords ; for the
years 1846, 1847, and 1848 will make a very fair ave-
rage time to the British farmer. But if these prices con-
tinue but for a short time longer, then the interest of
landlord, farmer, and labourer will demand a readjust-
ment of rents, either in the shape of corn-rents, con-
vertible into money at current prices, or in the reduc-
tion of the present money-rents of farms.

I now come to what I conceive the legislature may
do for the relief of agriculture. And the first remedy I
would mention is, to give the power to sell, or, in other
words, to disentail what are called in England settled
estates, or entailed estates in Scotland. I have already
alluded to the impossibility of the proprietors of entailed

22

landlords' rents

estates giving reductions of rent to their tenants, how-
ever much the times may require it ; and I know not a
greater benefit that could be conferred upon all classes
interested in the cultivation of the soil than would be
the abrogation of this law. To the prevalence of bank-
rupt entailed landlords in Ireland, much of her misery
has been attributed ; and, though in a less degree, both
England and Scotland suffer from the same evil. An
impoverished landlord afflicts with poverty all classes on
his estate : his expenditure must be the spring which
will stimulate improvement, promote industry, and, con-
sequently, circulate money and its accompanying com-
forts upon his estate and in his neighbourhood; and,
when that exists not, all — farmers, labourers, and
mechanics — suffer. No one now thinks of disputing the
fact, that tying up land in the hands of those who are
without capital, and at the same time preventing them
from raising it upon the security of their estates, is the
greatest barrier possible to the improvement of a coun-
try, and that its effects are felt as much in the great
cities of the empire as in the rural villages.- Next in
evil to the ruinous system, the law in France, of com-
pulsory division of landed property, is the opposite one
of entail; for of all articles of commerce, the most
important one by far — land — should be free to the great-
est possible investment of capital, because by and
through it is the great body of the people employed and
fed. No illustration of the evils resulting from a law
which renders land extra-commercial is needed. Estates
without proper farm-buildings, with undrained fields,
impoverished tenants, and unemployed labourers, pro-
claim, in every county in Britain, more or less, the evils
of the law of entail ; and to remove all these, and sub-
stitute for them wealthy landlords, industrious tenants,

AND TENANTS' PEOFITS.

23

well-employed labourers, and, consequently, a perfectly
cultivated land, nothing will do but a complete unfetter-
ing of the soil, untrammelled by legislation in any shape,
making it as transferable as a bale of cotton or a cask of
sugar. In these bad times the draining of a field, or the
erection of a steam-thrashing machine by a landlord for
a tenant struggling to bear up against prices he never
expected to see, might be more beneficial than a very
considerable reduction of rent ; interest would be thank-
fully paid by the tenant on the outlay, and the landlord
might thus save his tenant, and at the same time benefit
himself. But upon this national and individual benefi-
cial arrangement the law of entail puts its veto ; and
the tenant may, consequently, be ruined, the landlord
and his estate permanently injured, and the public may
and must suffer through the injury to both. Although
this law has been lately very much modified, what are
supposed to be individual and class interests are still
permitted very much to obstruct the public good. By
the amended Scotch Entail Act, the consents of the
three next heirs to the possessor are required to disen-
tail an estate. To get these consents must often be an
impossibility, for these are the parties who have the
strongest interest in refusing. To make it compulsory
on heirs substitute to take the value of their interests in
an estate, would be a more advisable measure than to
permit private interests to stand in the way of im-
provement of the country, — of the employment of the
people. To keep up a wealthy aristocracy — a golden
link 'twixt the throne and the people— is really desi-
rable, and therefore certain exceptions should be made
in favour of the nobility in regard to entail. For
instance, a duke might be permitted to entail £20,000
a-year in land on his heir-male, an earl £15,000, and a

24

landlords' rents

viscount £10,000, and so ou. This would always secure
adequate incomes to titles, and make them respect-
able ; and the injury to the country would be by this
by no means so great, forjent ails are always inju-
rious in proportion to the smaUness_^S_Jihe^ests,te ;
but to permit every man with more pride thanHbramFtd
entail his bit of land, (instances have been known of
, land to the value of £50 a-year being entailed,) pauper-
isino- his descendants and the future inhabitants of the
land, is a perfect burlesque upon legislation, and should
Jon no account be permitted.

The next parliamentary measure for the relief of
'agriculture ought to be the repeal of the malt-tax.
With a revenue, however, derived from this source of
£5,000,000 a-year, I fear such a proposal -would not
meet with much favour in Downing Street. This tax is
supposed to be paid by the consumer of malt liquors,
and in one sense it certainly is so, but it is much more
a tax upon the agricultural interest, for it diminishes the
consumption, lessens the sale, and consequently lowers
the price of one of the chief articles of their production.
Mr Cobden would hardly allow that a heavy duty upon
every yard of cotton cloth manufactured in England was
a general tax, and not one in particular affecting the
manufacturing interest ; and yet a malt-tax, as regards
the agricultural interest, is one quite analogous to this,
and equally oppressive to the agricultural interest, as
such a tax upon cotton cloth would be to the manufac-
turing interest. That this tax, from the large sum
derived from it, will be continued, is pretty sure ; but
that does not alter the unfairness of it, or take away
from the injury it inflicts upon the farmers of Britain.

The third and last legislative measure which I would
take the liberty of suggesting for the relief of British

AND TENANTS' PROFITS.

25

agriculture, is a moderate fixed duty upon foreign corn,
for the sake of revenue, and also for the purpose of
putting the home and foreign grower upon an equal
footing in the home market.

Mr M'Culloch, a very high authority, and certainly
no advocate of the late corn law, says, in his article on
the corn laws, (see Commercial Dictionary,) — " It is
difficult, or rather perhaps impossible, to estimate with
any degree of precision, what the excess of taxes laid
on agriculture, beyond that laid on manufacturers and
merchants, may amount to ; but we have elsewhere
shown, that if we estimate it as making an addition of
5s. or 6s. per quarter of wheat, we shall be beyond the
mark. However, we should in a case of this sort
reckon it safest to err on the side of too much protec-
tion, than of too little, and would not, therefore, object
to a fixed duty of 6s. or 7s. per quarter being laid on
wheat, and a proportional duty on other kinds of grain.
Under such a system, the ports would always be open,
the duty would not be so great as to interpose any
formidable obstacle to importation, and everybody would
know beforehand the extent to which it would operate."

Now, as Mr M'Culloch proposes a 6s. or 7s. duty per
quarter upon the importation of foreign wheat, the
consumer cannot be far wrong in offering the British
agriculturist, in order to put him on a footing with the
foreigner, in order to raise revenue, and to save and
secure the home production of food, and the home
market for our manufactures, — I say the consumer can-
not be far wrong in proposing to the farmer a compro-
mise of 4s. per quarter on wheat, 3s. upon barley, and
2s. upon oats ; and I believe this would be accepted by
the agriculturist as a fair, just, and final compromise of
the question. A small tax upon the consumer would

26

landlords' rents

this be, indeed, for the settlement of so important a
question ; for a 4s. duty upon the quarter of wheat would
raise the price of the four pound loaf a halfpenny, or
half-a-farthing per pound of bread — there being just
about a hundred such loaves from the fine flour of one
quarter of wheat. Setting aside the national outcry for
a total repeal of the corn law, and looking at the ques-
tion dispassionately, I think every unprejudiced person
will allow that the home grower is entitled to a certain
amount of protection. Consider that from the coach,
horses, wines, windows, servants, &c, &c, of the land-
lord, to the pot of beer and tobacco-pipe of the labourer,
everything used or consumed by the agricultural class is
taxed; that higher rents and higher wages must result
from this, and that if then the produce from which all
this must be paid is put on an exact footing with the
untaxed produce of the foreigner, in our home market,
what great injustice and grievous injury must be done
to the home grower ! We have not either, in many parts
of Britain, the advantage of proximity to markets, and
consequent cheap carriage ; for a quarter of wheat will
be conveyed at a lower rate from Hamburg or Dantzic
to London than from the Moray Firth. No doubt, the
manufacturer has to pay taxes as well as the farmer,
(though there are many taxes, and heavy ones too,
peculiar to land alone ;) but contrast his position as a
British manufacturer with that of the foreign manufac-
turer, and see how independent he is of protection
ao-ainst his foreign rival. See what an advantage the
inexhaustible beds of coal in England, and the conse-
quent command of steam-power, have given him over
the foreigner. The dense and highly skilled populations
of the great manufacturing cities, situated on navigable
rivers, with ships ready to waft their productions to

AND TENANTS' PROFITS.

27

every part of the world ; the power of producing by them
an unlimited amount of manufactures, unaffected by wind
or weather, heat or cold, light or darkness ; labour beat
down by competition to the lowest amount ; all these
enable the British manufacturer to undersell the world,
to laugh at protection ; and by these causes, all analogy
between the condition of the farmer and that of the
manufacturer is completely destroyed. For what
advantage has the British farmer over the foreign ? He
has a worse climate, a less fertile soil; he is more highly
taxed and rented ; steam is not available to him except
for the thrashing of corn; and for the general operations
of his farm he must use oxen and horses, as does the serf
of Poland or the American farmer ; labour is also much
more expensive than it is in the exporting countries of
continental Europe ; and poor-rates, unknown there,
press heavily on the British farmer. Were ours an art
as patent to the application of steam-power, as indepen-
dent of the seasons, as elastic in production, as impro-
vable by machinery as that of the manufacturer, we
would ask no protection against the produce of untaxed,
low-rented countries. We would allow that the paral-
lelism between our position and that of the manufac-
turer existed, and ask no more advantage or protection
in the production of food, than he does in the production
of clothing ; but seeing that it is not so, but that while
the foreigner pays little or no taxes, has cheap land,
cheap labour, and low freights to our shores, with a
more fertile soil and a better climate, and that we must
plough and harrow, sow and reap as he does, but at a
greater expense, we totally deny the analogy between
our business and his, (the manufacturer's,) and demand,
for his sake as well as our own, and in order to preserve
to him the home market for his productions, as well as

2S

landlords' eents

r the business by which we live, a small, but fair and just
protection.

No doubt the manufacturer will say — " Don't be
chicken-hearted ; do as we do ; put on the steam : bone
and guano more ; employ more labour ; ditch and drain ;
and grow double crops." No doubt fine fun for Mr Ma-
nufacturer. The advice is, of course, intended to be
general ; and the consequence would be, that the far-
mer, by expending 30s. per acre extra on guano for his
wheat, would find himself with a quarter more per acre,
but would have to sell the whole produce of that acre of
wheat at 30s. per quarter, instead of at 37s., which
would do away with the whole benefit of the extra quar-
ter per acre, and 5s. more, supposing he grew five quar-
ters per acre by this expenditure, instead of four with-
out it. This would be a very agreeable amusement to
the consumer; and we will " play at the game" to
please him, provided he gives us fair play at it, and
prevents those from joining in it who have land for next
to nothing, labour at one-half the price of ours ; who
pay no taxes, little rent, and no poor-rates; but, till he
starts us fair, we beg to be excused, and won't play the
fool to profit and amuse him, but to injure ourselves.
It is when farming pays that we do this, and hence the
manufacturer's gain in our wellbeing ; but with wheat
at 35s. per quarter, and a loss of £32 a-year in farming
a four hundred acre farm, we not only cannot buy bones
or guano, ditch or drain, but we must do the shabby — cut
, down the poor labourer's wages, withdraw our custom
1 from the shopkeeper, (which the manufacturer will by-
and-by feel, as all must do the same,) and farm low
I instead of high. The bankers, too, " shy " us with
wheat under 40s. per quarter. They don't like back-
going customers, and that puts it out of the power of

AND tenants' profits. 29

the needy ones among us to farm high ; so that this
same oft-repeated advice of high farming is not only (
generally more profitable to the public than to us, from
the excess of produce resulting from it still more redu-
cing the price, but, in bad times like these, impracticable,
from want of money and want of credit.

I have now done with my panaceas for our sufimng
business. They are, I am aware, very imperfect, but
they are such as some experience in farming tells me
may be of some use.

They are, — 1st, A thorough cultivation of the soil by
letting land to none except to skilful practical farmers,
and not fettering them over-much as to rotations of
cropping.

2d, A reduction in the numbers of game, and extirpa-
tion of vermin destructive to corn ; and if these don't do,
then —

3d, A reduction of rents in proportion to the fall in
prices. These remedies the landlords have in their own
hands.

Then, I conceive the legislative remedies to be —

1st, Opening up the soil to the investment of capital,
by the abolition of entails, except in some cases.

2d, The abolition of the malt-tax.

3d, A moderate fixed duty on foreign corn, for the
sake of revenue — for the sake of securing the home sup-
ply of food to the consumer, the home market to the
manufacturer — and for the purpose of preventing the ruin
in which this country would be involved by rents being
unpaid, land thrown out of cultivation, and labour
deprived of employment.

But, my Lord Duke, allow me to put you in mind of
this — " bis dat qui cito dat." If justice is to be done us,
if these remedies are to be applied, it were well they

30

landlords' rents

were done quickly. On the 20th October 1849, the
average price of wheat in Mark Lane was 41s. Id. per
quarter, of barley 28s. 2d., of oats 17s. 4d. ; and from
these prices have to be deducted the cost of freights to
London. 45 ' I need not tell your Grace, that such prices, if
long continued, will throw many a good acre of England
out of cultivation. I am sure that no appeal to your
Grace, or to the landlords of Britain, is necessary in
behalf of the tenant-farmers. I know that they would
scorn an appeal " ad misericordiam." I know that you
know that they are not the least valuable class of the
community. It is through and by their industry, capital,
and skill, that the hill-sides of Scotland have been made
to wave with yellow corn, and that our swamps, instead
of being the haunt of the plover and the snipe, have
become the rich pastures of the bulky Short-horn and
the broad-backed Leicester. It is they who pay the
landlord's rents, employ and feed the labourer, and sup-
port the pauper. They produce what sets the wheels of
manufacture and commerce in motion. Manchester and
Birmingham, notwithstanding what may be said to the
contrary, have a greater interest in the harvests of
Lincolnshire and the Lothians, than in the prairies of
America or in the fields of Poland. The most important
business of this country is in the hands of the tenant-
farmers — namely, the production of its food ; and it is
not too much to say, that, without them, society, as it is
now constituted in Britain, could not exist. For contrast,
my Lord Duke, a country in which none such may be
said to exist, with our own ; compare Ireland and her
cottier-holders with Scotland and her tenant-farmers.
Not all the difference of climate, soil, and situation, can

* Edinburgh averages, on 21st November 1849— Wheat, 37s. 4d. per quarter;
barley, 22s. 2d.; oats, 17s. 2d.

AND TENANTS' PKOFITS.

31

compensate for the prevalence, the universality, I may
call it, of the one class, the non-existence of the other.
The landlord in the one country, with nominally an
estate of £10,000 a-year, may be, and alas ! often is, a
pauper ; the landlord in the other, with an estate of
£1000 or £2000 a-year, enjoys all the comforts and
many of the luxuries of life. While the soil of Britain
was bound up in feudal fetters, and the landlords were
thus powerless to improve it, the capital and the know-
ledge of the tenant-farmers developed its capabilities,
and doubled your rent-rolls. In their wellbeing still
consists your prosperity, and in their destruction will be
your ruin. Preserve, then, my Lord Duke, yourself
and your order, this valuable body of men, and thereby
serve yourselves. A few years such as the present
would not only incapacitate them to make use of Mr
Caird's panacea of high farming, but would reduce them
to poverty ; while assistance from you, in the way I
have above recommended, in your legislative and indi-
vidual capacities, might save them and benefit your-
selves. We are altogether in the dark as to the future
effects of recent legislation as to corn, but let its conse-
quences be what they may, the possession by this
country of a class of industrious, intelligent tenant-
farmers — a class peculiar to Britain alone — must ever
be a great advantage, must be a source of wealth and
strength instead of poverty and weakness, and we should
not lightly lose them.

I have the honour to be,

My Lord Duke,

Your most obedient Servant,

D. MONEO.

Allan, by Tain, Ross-shire,
25th November 1849.

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