annually, between the 4th and 10 February, a competent number of persons, living in the shire, of experience in the prices of grain within its bounds, and that from these they should choose a jury of fifteen, of whom at least eight were to be heritors; that witnesses and other evidence as to the price of grain grown in the county, especially since 1 November preceding until the day of inquiry, were to be brought before the jury, who might also proceed on "their own proper knowledge"; that the verdict was to be returned and the sentence of the sheriff pronounced by 1 March; and further, where custom or expediency recommended it, the sheriff was empowered to fix fiars of different values according to the different qualities of the grain. It cannot be said that this act remedied all the evils of which it complained. The propriety of some of its provisions were questioned, and the competency of the court to pass it was doubted, even by the court itself. Its authority was entirely disregarded in one countyHaddingtonshire (now East Lothian)where the fiars were struck by the sheriff alone, without a jury; and when this practice was called in question the court declined to interfere, observing that the fiars were better struck in Haddingtonshire than anywhere else. The other sheriffs in the main followed the Act, but with much variety of detail, and in many instances on principles the least calculated to reach the true average prices. Thus in some counties the averages were taken on the number of transactions, without regard to the quantities sold. In one case, in 1838, the evidence was so carelessly collected that the second or inferior barley fiars were 2s. 4d. higher than the first. Formerly the price was struck by the boll, commonly the Linlithgowshire boll; in later years the imperial quarter was always used. Prices fixed by the Court for "Striking the fiars" were also used in the settling of contracts where no prices have been determined upon, e.g. in fixing stipends of ministers of the Church of Scotland, and were found useful in other ways. Notes References Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: Fiars Scots law legal terminology