KEPORT OF THE AGRICULTURE OF AYRSHIRE. 51 



tivatel by a few farmers amongst the uplands of the Cumnock s 

 and other high-lying parishes, but even there the " Tarn Finlay" 

 variety is generally preferred. 



Rye is grown to the extent of about 600 acres yearly. Fife, 

 Elgin, Aberdeen, and Ayr, containing the half of the 3,500 acres 

 under this cereal annually in Scotland. It is nearly all raised in 

 Ayrshire on the purely sandy soils along the coast. The 

 writer is old enough to remember extensive ranges of sand-hills 

 and sandy bent-ground, of probably 2000 acres area or more in 

 all, lying betwixt Saltcoats and Irvine, Irvine and Troon, Troon 

 and Prestwick, at that time stocked with rabbits, regularly fed 

 and protected, but great part of which is now levelled and re- 

 claimed, and orderly cropped with rye, wheat, early potatoes, 

 turnips, cabbage-seedlings, &c. To Mr. James Hutchinson, 

 Gailes, and his late father, is due the credit of improving a 

 large portion immediately south of Irvine ; and the latest notice- 

 able extent recovered was by Mr. Thomas Reid, Monktonmiln, 

 north-west of Monkton village. Mr. Reid rents about 400 acre* 

 on the Fairfield estate, and about 16 years ago levelled fully 

 100 acres of the sand-hills, at a cost averaging £12, 10s., per 

 acre ; the then proprietor, W. Gunning Campbell, Esq., advan- 

 cing the money, and upon which Mr. Reid pays interest during 

 his lease, extended to 44 years as an inducement to level. The 

 object in view was either to feu the levelled and improved sands 

 as sea-bathing quarters, or to have them irrigated by town 

 sewage water ; and possibly ere long both ends may be ob- 

 tained. Mr. Reid is bound to no particular rotation on his light 

 sandy soil. He frequently takes 2 year's green crop (succes- 

 sively) from the lea, followed by a grain crop with seeds ; and 

 good pecuniary returns are obtained in potatoes, turnips, &c, from 

 these warm sands, the moistness of climate being very favour- 

 able. Mr. Reid, like most other of our wheat growers, com- 

 plains that his land has got tired of wheat, and has grown none 

 of that cereal for several years. He now sows oats principally 

 and rye. It was well that means were taken to extirpate the 

 rabbits, as they had spread themselves several miles inland, 

 and were not at all looked upon as welcome guests on their 

 corn lands by the farmers. We see rye, too, sometimes grow- 

 ing upon patches of improved moss. 



Bere and barley were cultivated in Cunningham division 

 alone in 1819 to the extent of 1,380 statute acres; but in 1857 

 their cultivation over the whole of Ayrshire had shrunk in to a 

 less amount than above by fully 2()0 acres. Throughout the 

 inland districts now, neither bere nor barley is grown, save an 

 odd rigg on farms here and there to furnish 4 or 5 bushels of 

 grain for the " kale-pat," The cause of the declension is not 

 from want of demand, as the Ayrshire brewers and Campbel- 



