48 report of the agriculture of Ayrshire. 



The writer has noticed, these some years back, considerable areas 

 under a maslin of beans and oats, and which seems a very judi- 

 cious way of growing both for home use. If the beans are at- 

 tacked with disease, an extra produce may be relied on from 

 what oats there are, and so the one helps the other; but oats are 

 always stronger in straw and panicle, comprising mere seeds, 

 when grown in mixture with beans. An instance of a drilled- 

 maslin of this kind grown at Struthers, near Kilmarnock (Mr. 

 James Sturrock), is worth notice. The field, about 14 acres of 

 good strong loam, had lain the usual 4 years in grass, and was 

 broken up in spring 1863 with oats, having been previously well 

 top-dressed with dung. Early in November the stubble ground 

 was thrown into drills, about 27 inches wide, by the single- 

 wre'sted plough laying up furrows of 7 or 8 inches depth 

 the one against the other. Thus laid up, if a wet winter should 

 ensue, the soil is kept much drier, and does not sour ; if, on the 

 contrary, a long hard frost should set in, as was the case in 

 winter 1863-4, the frost acts more effectually on the surface soil, 

 both vertically and laterally, and also into the sub-soil at the 

 bottom of the drills. In spring 1864, the drills were broken 

 down with the bow-harrows, sown broadcast with about 2 cwt. 

 per acre of artificials, 2^ bushels oats and 2 bushels beans per 

 Scots acre, and the seeds and manure covered in by splitting up 

 or reversing into new drills. The new drills sometime after 

 were broken down with the bow-harrows, grubbed and ploughed- 

 up, and finally rolled flat with a heavy stone roller; and when 

 the plants were from 2 to 4 inches long, the spaces were grubbed 

 and worked as with ordinary green crop. The result has been 

 a very good crop, both of straw and grain. It would have been 

 better, however, with fewer oats and more beans sown, say 

 nearly 3 bushels beans to H bushels oats per Scots acre, an 1 

 Mr. Sturrock intends to adopt that measure with another field 

 laid up in like manner for crop 1865. The oats in the above 

 case being thick, and growing most luxuriantly, smothered the 

 beans, and prevented them fully podding. A part of the field 

 was sown with pease instead of beans, and that sort of maslin 

 is probably the most profitable of the two. Wheat (dunged), 

 and sown out w T ith seeds, follows the drilled-maslin ; the ground 

 having been thoroughly grubbed, harrowed, and cleaned, during 

 the dry weather in October, 1864. 



The kind of beans grown in Ayrshire are the common tick 

 or horse bean, of a medium size, not so large as those grown in 

 the Carse districts, nor so small as the round foreign tick. One- 

 half or more are raised as manured drill-beans, at a width 

 usually of about 27 inches, and sown sometimes with the drill- 

 barrow, and sometimes broadcast over the drills. Seed, generally 

 about 4 bushels per Scots acre. The shire occupies a prominent 



