104 REPORT ON THE AGRICULTURE OF PEETHSHIEE. 



3. Clay and carse land, being the wheat and bean lands of the 

 county. 



There is a considerable extent of the best land in the county 

 that may be placed in either of the last two divisions, being 

 suitable for and capable of growing any kind of crop, having all 

 the advantages of both without the disadvantages of either. The 

 black land in the Carse of Gowrie is wrought with the ease of 

 turnip land. It dries rapidly, does not suffer from drought, and 

 while it grows as good wheat, beans, clover, and tares as the 

 best clay lands, it also produces as heavy crops of turnips and 

 potatoes as any land in the country, and when laid down to 

 permanent pasture it equals any land in Scotland for feeding. 

 From its quality this black land in the Carse of Gowrie should 

 be considered with the lighter lands, as being the best class of such 

 soils, but from its locality and production it is more convenient 

 to consider it with the Carse lands. 



"While, however, the lands of the county may be properly 

 divided into these three great classes, it must not be supposed 

 that every farm within each class is worked in the same way, as 

 there are infinite varieties of management ; but this diversity of 

 practice arises not so much from difference in the rotations of 

 cropping, and crops grown on the various classes of land, as from 

 the mode of disposal and application of the crops produced. 

 The leases under which land is held seldom attempt to regulate 

 the disposal of the produce ; for while on the light lands they 

 provide for a five, and on the Carse or clay lands for a six or 

 seven shift, they have never done much towards providing for 

 the proper use of the crops grown, or considered that part of the 

 subject as having as much to do with the condition of the land 

 as the rotation of the crops grown from it. Most leases have 

 carefully and painfully prohibited the growth of two white or corn 

 crops in succession, and prohibited the disposal of straw — both 

 very good stipulations so far as they go — but no provision is made 

 for the grass that intervenes between two white crops being used 

 in a manner that will tend to restore the land ; and as the sale of 

 hay is usually authorised and provided for, hay being quite as 

 exhaustive of the land as any grain crop, it may be fairly said 

 that these leases, while prohibiting two white crops in succes- 

 sion, are in truth permitting three to follow each other. And 

 while it is provided that the straw shall be kept on the farm, no 

 provision is made for its receiving those enriching matters from 

 the consumption of other crops and substances, which alone can 

 make it of value as manure in maintaining or improving the 

 condition of the soil to which it is applied in compensation for 

 what is sold off and lost to the land. It is from the latitude 

 allowed to farmers on these points in their leases that the great 

 difference in their practice arises ; and while many, from old- 



