8 ON THE AGRICULTURE OF THE 



other gentlemen of note, spared no pains in bringing their systen^ 

 of agriculture to as high a pitch as possible. 



Bearing the date of 1770, a minister of Dunse, Adam Dickson 

 by name, issued a work, entitled ''The Husbandry of the Ancients,'* 

 which threw considerable light upon the agriculture of bygone 

 days. This appeared at a time when men's minds were ready to 

 grasp at new ideas upon a subject which was receiving a largo 

 share of attention. A few sentences showing the practice of the 

 ancients may not be here deemed out of place. We cull from Mr 

 Dickson's admirable little work : — " Varro says that land should 

 rest every other year, or, after a severe crop, carry one that in a 

 lesser degree exhausts the land. 



" Columella says that wheat requires rich land, and that which 

 carries a crop, and rests, and is well ploughed alternately. 



'' Virgil requires that the fallowed lands, after they have 

 carried a crop, shall be again fallowed. 



'' And Pliny says that this direction, given by Virgil, is most 

 proper when the extent of the farm allows it ; but that if the 

 situation of the farm does not allow this, then wheat may be 

 sown after such crops as meliorate the soil. This kind of laud 

 that was so frequently fallowed was seldom dunged." 



Mr Dickson continues in much the same strain. His book 

 could not but form a useful companion to rising farmers at the 

 time we speak of, and no doubt it was to a certain extent appre- 

 ciated by such of the community as were readers. 



In an interesting work published in 1795, by George Eobert- 

 son, farmer, Granton, it is stated that the competition for farms 

 lying around Edinburgh was so great as to reduce the profits 

 of the husbandman to little more than legal interest on his 

 capital. The writer thought that it was unfair of the laird ol' 

 factor to exact rigorously the rent at the precise term of payment, 

 and maintained that in order to make it, the tenant was often 

 obliged to sell his produce at a great disadvantage. He declared 

 that he frequently had occasion to observe the circumstances 

 attending failure among the farmers, and could trace them to the 

 injudicious conduct of the landlords. 



The capital then employed in agriculture was L.5 the Scotch 

 acre in the low country, L.2 in the moorlands, and 5s. on the 

 hills. From two causes chiefly, this amount was soon afterwards 

 thought to be inadequate : first, because all articles of stocking 

 became dearer ; and secondly, from having everything of a 

 superior quality to what farmers were formerly satisfied with. 

 One fourth part was therefore added, and the result found to 

 correspond very nearly Avith the capital employed upon a farm 

 near to Edinburgh, which was L.6, 5s. 3d. the Scotch acre. On 

 the above data, the whole capital employed in Mid-Lothian 

 farming was calculated at — 



