REPORT ON THE AGRICULTURE OF PERTHSHIRE. 171 



years been the great prop of the Perthshire farmer. The Perth- 

 shire reds were then in their glory ; they yielded enormous crops, 

 which made up for low prices, and a great business was carried 

 on in exporting them to London from the port of Perth. The 

 disease, however, altered all this. The Perthshire reds suffered 

 more, and rotted faster than any other kind ; and they now hold 

 a position in the vegetable somewhat analogous to the fossil fishes 

 of the old red sandstone in the animal kingdom. Regents and 

 hens' nests became the kinds that were cultivated ; but a crop of 

 20 bolls (the big Perthshire boll, four to the ton) was con- 

 sidered a good crop, while the old reds ranged from 40 to 80 bolls 

 per acre. This diminished production, further reduced in some 

 years by the continuance of the disease, made potatoes an uncer- 

 tain, and, on the whole, an unremimerative crop, and the atten- 

 tion of farmers was turned to turnips, and stock to eat them. As 

 long as potatoes were the rage, turnips in Perthshire never got 

 fair play ; for the best dung, and much the largest proportion, went 

 to the potatoes, and the turnips only got the longer spring-made 

 dung, or none at all ; for bones were grudged, and the light manure 

 era had not dawned on the agricultural world. Fifteen tons of 

 turnips were then thought a very fair crop. About this time 

 guano made its appearance from abroad, and gave for the time a 

 great stimulus to agriculture, and probably saved Perthshire for 

 several years, between 1848 and 1853, from a total collapse. 

 Nothing could be blacker than the prospects of the Perthshire 

 farmer at that period ; the price of grain ranged between L.2, 2s. 6d. 

 and L.2, 13s. for the triple boll ; his old friends the red potatoes 

 gone, and their places supplied by others yielding a niggardly 

 and uncertain crop ; while fat cattle only realised 7s. per Dutch 

 stone. At this time many farmers were induced to go more into 

 stock and the growth of turnips instead of potatoes, and all who 

 did so have done well. They were right to desert the potatoes, 

 for they are the sure type of an exhausting style of farming when 

 grown to such an extent as to exclude the possibility of keeping 

 a proper quantity of stock. Potatoes and hay, unless with com- 

 pensatory application of extra manure, may fairly be styled ille- 

 gitimate profits ; for grain and stock are the only legitimate 

 exports from land. 



Those men who had gone into stock farming were agreeably 

 surprised to find the price that they received gradually rising in 

 their favour, and this circumstance induced an extended growth 

 of turnips, and tended to reduce the proportion of the green crop 

 division under potatoes. As a consequence of this change, the 

 manure made was of greater value, and the land was improved 

 in condition, as shown by the crops and grass produced from it. 

 More recently, the enormous advance on the returns from sheep, 

 in both wool and mutton, have led the great bulk of farmers of 



