REPORT ON THE AGRICULTURE OF DUMFRIESSHIRE. 285 



Laighwood, Dunkeld), took in the scheme, and the remarkable 

 crops of turnips which, with a liberal application of artificial 

 manures, and great width of drill and hoeing, he year after year 

 produced, did much to extend an improved style of turnip 

 husbandry. 



There is one branch of arable farming in which Dumfriesshire 

 and the eastern part of Kirkcudbright (for the two are similar in 

 this respect) are perhaps about the top of the tree, and that is 

 sheep feeding upon turnips. A high authority ascertained, from 

 returns which he procured about twenty years ago, that turnip- 

 fed one-year-old sheep in this county exceeded in weight and 

 value the best in the Lothians and in Norfolk. Latterly, how- 

 ever, Norfolk and Lincolnshire are treading close upon our heels, 

 as well indeed they may with their superior climate and other 

 advantages. The gentleman referred to is of opinion that there 

 are various arable farmers in the middle of Annandale whose 

 management produces profits from their sheep scarcely equalled 

 anywhere in Britain. The Lockerbie Fanners' Club has helped 

 in no small degree to bring about such a satisfactory state of 

 things. A show of turnip-fed hogs has long been held, under 

 their auspices, at Lockerbie in the April of each year. We shall 

 refer more minutely in a subsequent part of this paper to the 

 weights of the sheep exhibited on these occasions ; we merely 

 remark now, that the annual weighing of the hogs, accompanied, 

 as it was for a good many years, with detailed statements of the 

 quantities of turnips, grain, &c, consumed by each sheep, gave a 

 considerable stimulus to the good feeding of them, not only over 

 Dumfriesshire, but throughout a large part of Galloway. 



Section III. — 1. Site of Farms. 2. Length of Leases. 3. Different 

 kinds of Entries. 4. Course of Rotation. 



1. Size of Farms. — There are few counties in Scotland where 

 the arable farms vary so much in extent as in Dumfries- 

 shire. In every part of the county are to be found farms of 

 large and small extent, varying as they do from 700 or 800, 

 down to 60 or 70 acres. There are no farms (properly so called) 

 in the county less than 60 or 70 acres in extent, each of which 

 gives employment to one man-servant and one pair of horses. 

 The tendency of late years, however, has been to convert two or 

 more farms into one holding, so that the number of tenant-farmers 

 is becoming less numerous. There are many obvious advantages 

 attending this system of enlargement ; as, for example, the estab- 

 lished fact that a large farm can be wrought at less expense than 

 the working of the same extent of land divided into several small 

 farms would cost. But while we would regret to see all the 

 farms small, neither would it, in our opinion, be beneficial to 



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