REPORT ON THE AGRICULTURE OF PERTHSHIRE. 185 



they might defy him to deteriorate the farm. Low as the farm- 

 ing in the Carse undoubtedly is, it is not to any provisions in 

 the leases, as they are at present drawn, that we can look for 

 any improvement. They are all framed in accordance with the 

 low system that has prevailed, and wherever good management 

 does prevail in this district, it is attributable not to the pro- 

 visions in the lease, but to the energy and enterprise of the tenant. 

 It is undeniable, that to meet the requirements of the land for 

 keeping it in condition under the Carse system, L.l an acre per 

 annum, for every acre of the farm, must be laid out in good solid 

 farm-yard or stable and byre dung beyond what is made on the 

 farm ; but though there are exceptions, few men of the present 

 day who sell hay and potatoes off the farm, think of making such 

 an expenditure, and those who do confine the application to the 

 earlier part of their leases, and suspend it toward their con- 

 clusion. Farmers in general would be more disposed to buy 

 good manure, if they reflected that the addition of L.l per acre 

 to the rent and expenses, which, taken together, may be put on 

 good land at L.7, is in reality only a seventh, while the increase, 

 if produced, may eventually, by perseverance in the system, 

 reach 50 per cent. With the course of cropping allowed in the 

 Carse, and the permission to sell hay and potatoes, the protecting 

 clauses in the present leases are utterly inadequate for the pur- 

 pose ; and instead of giving in to the cry from certain quarters, 

 that there should be greater latitude given as to cropping, a 

 system of management should be prescribed and enforced that 

 would not leave the matter to the mere chance of getting a good 

 man, especially if there should be a general change of system. 

 By low farming is meant the opposite of high farming, which is 

 a common expression in the present day. If it is a fact that 

 there are farmers, and not a few, in the Carse who plough and 

 sow, and apply no more manure than what is made on the farm, 

 while they sell off all the grain, except a little given to their 

 horses, all their hay, with the same exception, and all their 

 potatoes, except what the pig gets, it may assuredly be called low 

 farming, and lower farming than probably in any other district 

 in Scotland. The farmers round Edinburgh, and all large towns, 

 sell as much off their farms as in the Carse, but they bring back 

 enormous quantities of manure to supply the place of the ab- 

 stractions. They are, and act much as market-gardeners, who 

 sell off all the produce, and who don't expect the pig they keep 

 in the corner for consuming the " blades," to supply the manure 

 required for their garden ; but after all, this pig and the blades 

 would manure it nearly as well as the sort of farmer first alluded 

 to, who manures his greater extent with his slender stock. We 

 repeat, the only legitimate exports from a farm are grain and stock. 

 If they are confined to these, the land well managed may main- 



