o4 THE AGRICULTURE OF THE 



the traffic. By trench ploughing during the last twenty-five 

 years, about 100 acres of pasture and moor land, which was 

 worth originally Is. per acre, on the hill of Burgie, have been 

 reclaimed, and are now worth from 8s. to 12s. 6d. per acre. 

 About 80 acres also reclaimed on tlie Burgie Lodge farm, and of 

 these about four-fifths have been ploughed and one-fifth 

 trenched. The cost of reclamation is estimated at from £5 to 

 £20 per acre, which was paid by the tenant. An enterprising 

 tenant improved about 40 acres on Burgie Hill, and for £50 

 sublet his holding, for which he only paid £20. The other 

 improvements effected, apart from reclamation of land, have 

 been chiefly in squaring up farms and repairing drains. The 

 duration of lease, as on most other estates, is nineteen years, with. 

 entry at Whitsunday to houses, grass, and fallow, and at the 

 separation of the crop of that year from the ground to the land 

 under crop. The terms of removal, as regards the garden and 

 green crop, fix the 1st of May as the day of exit. If buildings 

 be executed by the tenants at their own expense, they are kept 

 n repair by the trustees, by way of recompensating these 

 tenants for the labour and expense incurred in erecting the 

 houses. For instance, in the year 1866, three leases expired, 

 and the tenants had claims for meliorations for improvements 

 effected during the currencv of their leases, which instead of 

 being paid to the tenants, the proprietors relet the farms to 

 the same tenants at such rents as to wipe oil' all their claims. 

 In the case of a large farm, the lease of which expired in 1868, 

 w^hen the tenant had a claim for about £1400, the same 

 course of remuneration \vas adopted. The average rent over 

 the estate is 21s. per acre ; the lowest 7s., and the highest 

 36s. Bents are paid partly at Candlemas and Lammas, after 

 the ingathering of the crop, and partly at Whitsunday and 

 Martinmas. Cottages are numerous, and a good many of the 

 farms servants are married. On li^ht and loamy soils the 

 farms are divided as nearly as possible into five and six shifts 

 of equal size, at the beginning of the lease, and the tenant 

 then follows out a regular system by either of these courses. 

 The rules are these — " The five-shift shall consist of, first year, 

 green crop ; second year, white or corn crop laid down with 

 grass ; third, hay to be cut once only and then j^astured ; fourth, 

 second year's grass ; and fifth, white or corn crop." The six- 

 shift system is the same as that of the five-shift, except that 

 there are three years' grass instead of two. The cattle on the 

 Burgie Lodge farm, tenanted by Mr R. J. Mackay, are pure 

 bred shorthorns, but generally throughout the estate a cross 

 breed of cattle between a black polled bull and cross cows 

 prevail. Most of the cattle fed are sold fat, when two and a 

 half years' old. Mr Mackay's pure bred herd of shorthorns 



