Journal entry – John Grey – 17 Nov 1833

Monday 18th November 1833



Wrote to Mr Storey, Bailiff at Wark, enclosing an account of Rents still due in that district, requesting him to obtain as speedily as possible & to bring them here, that I may return the receipts & settle with him, his Salary yet unpaid.  



Went to Thornbrough Highbarns to see the quantity of Corn & other effects upon the farm & ascertain what prospect the Tenant has of continuing in it.  He has a good deal of Corn in Stock & also a fair prospect for next year, and, but for the Arrears hanging over him from the farm at Newtonhall, which he left on coming there, he might I think get on.  To make a payment at the Spring Rent he borrowed money from the Bank, which having been obliged lately to repay, he cannot now, nor till Christmas, pay his half years Rent, so that the Hospital benefits little by the transaction.  He is an industrious man and desirous of doing well, but besides the depression of the times, states to me a case of great hardship, having been defrauded of some hundred pounds by a person whose situation gave him the power of exercising an influence over the Tenantry of the Hospital, & whose only plea for refusing payment, is that his pro note is rendered invalid, by the statute of limitation - conduct which if generally known , would subject the individual to the reprobation  of every honest man.  Returned through Thornbrough Town Farm to examine minutely the ruinous fences which the tenant thinks it better to get rid of than renew, in which he is partly right - also to look particularly into the quantity of tillage land with a view to try to get it managed in such a course as I should like, were I the tenant.  Mr Scott refused to sign his Lease upon the covenants prescribed to him, & proposed alterations which proved him to have better judgment than those who made the arrangement, & is now deriving the benefit of the change he insisted upon.  It is a fine farm and he is a good tenant, & I am anxious that he should go to the full extent of acting upon the five course husbandry which I think would be very useful as an example, especially as coming from a keen man.  But even he spoils his hedges, by an abominable mode of cutting which eventually destroys them.  I have got my son to send some suitable hedge knives, but I believe that I must also get a man to teach them the use of them.  In the evening prepared a form of agreement for the Lessees of the proposed Saw Mill.