TITHE OF AGISTMENT, or the tithe of cattle and other produce of grass lands, is a small tithe in England paid to the vicar or rector by the occupier of the land, and not by the person who may put his cattle there to graze at a certain rate per head. This tithe was abolished in Ireland by the act of Union; but for a long time previously it had been very irregularly paid. After the Reformation, while the lands were chiefly in the possession of Catholics, the clergy received thankfully whatever they could get; but subsequently to the capitulation of Limerick, when almost all the benefices fell into the hands of Protestant rectors, they gradually began to reassume their constitutional rights. Accordingly, about the year 1720, they formally demanded payment of the tithe of agistment, to which their right was as indisputable as to the tithe of tillage lands; but it was vehemently resisted by the landlords. The clergy appealed to the Court of Exchequer; but although they obtained a decision in their favour, the question was not set at rest: for soon afterwards (on the 18th March 1735), the Irish House of Commons resolved, "that any lawyer assisting in a prosecution for tithe of agistment, should be considered as an enemy to his country." The tendency of this arbitrary and unjust procedure was to deprive the incumbents of the greater part of their income, and, at a time when the cultivated land in Ireland was but a mere fraction of what it now is, to throw the whole burden of their maintenance on the cultivators of tillage lands, thus relieving the extensive landowners at the expense of the small proprietors and tenants. In this position the matter stood at the period of the Union, when Sir John Macartney, aware that the extraordinary resolution of 1735 was not law, attempted to frustrate the Union, by moving that the abolition of the tithe of agistment should be embodied in the act. The measure, however, contrary to expectation, was suffered quietly to pass, and became law by a formal act of the imperial parliament. See Wakefield's Account of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 485.