REPORT ON THE AGRICULTURE OF DUMFRIESSHIRE. 277 



Very many causes have contributed to that advancement, the 

 chief of which we shall now proceed to enumerate and illustrate. 

 It will be understood that in doing so we confine our attention 

 to such causes as are peculiar to Dumfriesshire. There are many 

 circumstances of a general nature which have tended to promote 

 agricultural improvement over the whole kingdom ; such, for 

 example, as a more perfect and more general acquaintance with 

 the principles of agricultural chemistry, and the marked improve- 

 ments which have been effected in implements of husbandry. 

 The influence of these has been felt very much alike in all dis- 

 tricts and localities, and therefore it would be out of place to 

 burden such a paper as the present with an account of them. 

 There must always, however, be many causes of a local nature 

 which have exerted a powerful influence in promoting the 

 advancement of agriculture in any district or county, and our 

 object under this section is briefly to specify and illustrate the 

 principal of such causes as have been in operation in this 

 county. 



1. And prominent among these, because perhaps on the 

 whole the most influential, ought to be mentioned the results 

 which followed the application of steam power, as experienced 

 first in the sailing of a steamboat between Annan and Liverpool, 

 and afterwards more especially in the opening up of every part 

 of the county by railways. Before steamboats and railways 

 were available for carrying away the produce of the land Dum- 

 fries, as a county, was extremely isolated. Every part of it was 

 situated at a considerable distance from any of the great centres 

 of population, where all kinds of farm produce would readily 

 meet with a good market. Lockerbie, which is geographically 

 about the centre of the county, is 75 miles from Edinburgh, 80 

 miles from Glasgow, 90 miles from Newcastle, and 155 miles 

 from Liverpool. These distances will give the reader some idea 

 of the difficulties in the way of conveying the produce to places 

 where it could be consumed, and he will understand how they 

 could not but retard agricultural improvement. It is true, before 

 the time of which we speak sailing vessels came into the ports 

 of Annan and Dumfries, but these ports were both situated at 

 the extreme end of the county, and besides, they were, especially 

 in such a thing as live stock, a very slow and unsatisfactory mode 

 of transit. In fact, live stock were not taken in them at all. 

 The disadvantages under which the Dumfriesshire farmer 

 laboured, from the isolated situation of the county, may be under- 

 stood from the fact which is recorded by Rev. Dr Singer, and to 

 which further allusion will be made in a subsequent part of this 

 paper, that in 1812, potatoes, for the growth of which the soil of 

 the county was unusually well adapted, could not be sold for 

 more than half the price which they realised in Edinburgh, and 



