ABSTRACT
No expedient could more happily combine, in the same individual, affection for property, with zeal for cultivation; or more usefully employ, in improving land, the capital destined to cultivate it. The law undoubtedly was a very wise one, it increased the value of emphyteutic leases, and encouraged the cultivator not to relax his care when the term of the lease was about to expire. If the legislator wanted to encourage the system of cultivation he ought to have called for the enjoyment of an income well above the forty shillings the law sets, for the freeholder to hold the right to vote. These pieces of land, which can be seen by the hundreds, advertised to feu around Edinburgh, are not anymore a system of rural cultivation; it is an encouragement to these imprudent speculators who have constructed many deserted streets and have ruined many contractors around the Scottish capital.
