296 REPOET ON THE AGRICULTURE OF DUMFRIESSHIRE. 



Section V. — Green Crop Cultivation. Potatoes and Turnips; and 

 Consumption of the latter upon the Land by Sheep. 



1. Potatoes. — Five and twenty years ago a good deal of the land 

 which is now under green crop was allowed to lie fallow. At 

 the present time almost none of the strictly arable land is left in 

 that unproductive state. The only " bare fallow " now is land 

 which is in process of being reclaimed, and which after being 

 ploughed is left in that condition for a season. It appears from 

 the Government Eeturns of 1866 that there were 5039 acres of 

 " bare fallow " in the county in that year. But we doubt very 

 much the correctness of the return, as no arable land which is 

 under ordinary management is permitted to remain uncropped. 

 We are confirmed in our opinion as to the inaccuracy of the 

 above return by finding that the Highland Society Eeturn of 

 1856 gives only 352 acres in " bare fallow." Possibly there is a 

 clerical error in the last Inland Eevenue Eeturn, and it should 

 stand 539 acres. The most of the green crop grown in the 

 county five and twenty years ago consisted of potatoes. As 

 remarked under a previous section, the soil was well adapted for 

 that root, and large quantities of them were grown. This was 

 more particularly the case in the middle and upper districts, 

 where turnip husbandry was not much practised. In the lower 

 districts, however, this latter crop was year by year being more 

 extensively cultivated. By degrees the growing of turnips be- 

 came better understood, until a large proportion of what had 

 hitherto been devoted to the production of potatoes, and the 

 whole of the fallow land also, were employed to raise turnips. 

 In 1866, there were about four acres of turnips in the county 

 for every acre of potatoes, the exact extent of each being — 

 potatoes, 5173 acres ; turnips, 20,300 acres. A few farmers in 

 the neighbourhood of Dumfries have of late years been in the 

 habit of growing potatoes for the early market. They are pur- 

 chased by dealers and sent to Newcastle and Glasgow, but this 

 system is not carried on to a large extent. It was long cus- 

 tomary to use no other except farm-yard manure in the pro- 

 duction of this crop, but now it is usual to supplement it by the 

 application of various kinds of artificial manures. 



2. Turnip Cultivation. — Turnips have become an extremely 

 important crop to the Dumfriesshire arable farmer ; not that 

 they directly yield him such a large return, for when the manure 

 and labour spent upon them are taken into account, the clear 

 profit is considerably reduced ; but they help to clean the land, 

 and when eaten off by sheep, which, as we shall see by-and-by, 

 a large proportion of them generally are, they so enrich and 

 consolidate it that their importance can scarcely be . over- 



