REPORT OF THE AGRICULTURE OF AYRSHIRE. 47 



with a frequent and liberal use of artificial manures, but space 

 will not permit to enter into details. It is besides quite ex- 

 ceptional to the common run of dairy-farming around Kilmar- 

 nock. 



SECTION III. 



Brief Remarks on the Cereal, Leguminous, Root, Flax, or other Field 

 Crops Cultivated — Summer Fallowing— Ploughing — Harvesting, &c. 



The potato crop has been sufficiently handled in the preced- 

 ing section. Ayrshire is, however, considerably behind the 

 other western shires in comparative extent under potatoes. 

 Relatively to the total acreage under tillage in each: — Renfrew 

 has one-sixth part in potatoes ; Argyle, one-seventh ; Dum- 

 barton, one-eighth ; Bute, one-tenth ; Lanark, one- eleventh ; and 

 Ayr, one-fourteenth only. In the same relation, Fife has one- 

 ninth part ; Perth, one-tenth ; and Haddington, one-twelfth. 

 Glasgow market accounts chiefly for the extensive cultivation on 

 the west coast. 



The total acreage under turnips in Ayrshire seven years 

 back was about 17,000 acres, and contrasting tjiis with that 

 grown in the chief turnip district of Scotland — viz., Berwick- 

 shire on the opposite coast, the latter county has three times as 

 much land under turnips proportionably with the total acreage 

 under rotation, and double the extent looking to the land under 

 actual tillage in each. But Ayrshire is no worse than some of 

 her neighbours like-circumstanced, as both Lanarkshire and 

 Renfrewshire grow a less proportional acreage. The shortness 

 of turnips in the inland districts, which will yet be more insigni- 

 ficant unless seasons mightily change, is not owing to any defi- 

 ciency on the part of the farmers in the art of cultivation, or to 

 an insensibility of the value of that crop, but soil, and especially 

 climate, will not permit. And it is no great drawback to the 

 dairy farmers that they cannot grow large breadths of these. 

 It would be more profitable for many of them to grow even less 

 than they presently do, and work and manure the smaller areas 

 more sufficiently. On the lighter lands along the coast, as 

 good turnips, and in as great proportional breadth, can be seen, 

 as in the best farmed districts of Scotland, and which are put to 

 as piofitable use in feeding of either cattle or sheep. 



Broadcast beans are sometimes substituted for one of the oat 

 crops in beginning the course by the 9 or 10-year rotation men. 

 They are commonly taken out of the lea, as a good crop of oats 

 can almost invariably be depended on after, and oats after old 

 lea are apt to be injured by "worming," or if they escape the worm, 

 are apt to lodge. If the land is to be sown down again without 

 being green-cropped, the beans must, of course, come in first. 



