AGISTMENT

In Law." From the old French word, agister, which signifies a licence granted for cattle, viz. to be harboured, or, in legal phrase, levant and couchant, on the land. A contract by which A.'s cattle are taken into B.'s ground, to remain there at a stipulated sum, paid periodically. Agistment is also used for the profits of such feeding. The " Tithe of Agistment," or of cattle and other produce of gra lands, demanded by the Irish olergy, was resisted, in 1720, by the landlords, and in effect abolished by a resolution of the Irish house of commons (1735). By the act of union, this resolution was pa ed into law; and thus the tithes of Ireland have, in effect, been thrown on the poorest part of the agricultural population, fhe owners and cultivators of arable land. (See Ed. Rev., vol. xxxiv.: Wake field's Ireland, vol. ii.) [s. 35]