Second Shetland Truck System Report by William Guthrie
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remain fallow for one, and sometimes two years in succession, but
the infield is generally turned over every year.'** [Vol. i p. 147 sqq.] * This does not accurately describe the present mode of paying rents. The rent is always nominally a money rent, although it may be paid in account, as will afterwards be shown ** It would be out of place to make extensive quotations from this valuable work. But I refer to it as containing discussions the social state of Shetland, showing that many of the questions involved in the present inquiry required an answer seventy years ago. See also Hibbert's The enclosed lands were formerly runrig, inhabitants of the township in scattered allotments, at different places within the dyke or enclosing wall,-the allotments being made, apparently, in such a manner as to give the tenants equal shares of the different qualities of land. In late years, however, much progress is said to have been made in dividing the farms and throwing the ground of each tenant into one lot. [J.S. Houston, 9654; W. Stewart, 8992; A. Sandison, 9993.] DWELLINGS. The following description of the Shetland hut or cottage is written by Dr. Arthur Mitchell, now one of the Commissioners of Lunacy for Scotland, a very accurate and careful observer (Appendix to the Second Report of the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland, 1860):- |
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