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It might probably have continued to take place, too, with regard

to corn, had not the institution of the public fiars put an end

to it. These are annual valuations, according to the judgment of

an assize, of the average price of all the different sorts of

grain, and of all the different qualities of each, according to

the actual market price in every different county. This

institution rendered it sufficiently safe for the tenant, and

much more convenient for the landlord, to convert, as they call

it, the corn rent, rather at what should happen to be the price

of the fiars of each year, than at any certain fixed price. But

the writers who have collected the prices of corn in ancient

times seem frequently to have mistaken what is called in Scotland

the conversion price for the actual market price. Fleetwood

acknowledges, upon one occasion, that he had made this mistake.