Gala Water 



97 



sheep, cattle, and wool. Toward Cai'lisle, also, 

 transit was facilitated at the beginning of this 

 century, for Duke Henry of Buccleuch and 

 others carried roads from Canonbie up the 

 Liddel to Jedburgh by Notc-of-the-Gate, and to 

 Hawick by Limekilnedge. With the construc- 

 tion of these roads the march of improveinent 

 in the district began in earnest, but we may 

 conceive of the difficulties under which Dr 

 Douglas and his contemporaries laboured when 

 it is stated that till the beginning of this century 

 Edinburgh letters for Galashiels, as well as 

 Selkirk, Jedburgh, and Hawick, were carried 

 round by Berwick. Thus it happened that 

 letters from Edinburgh to Galashiels travelled 

 119 miles, while the actual distance between the 

 two places was only 30 miles ; and this is all the 

 more strange when we consider that there was 

 actually a " runner " from Edinburgh to Lauder, 

 eight miles from Galashiels. In 179S Dr 

 Douglas proposed that Lauder should be a 

 central point for the district, whence one runner 

 should start for Kelso, 17 miles off, and another 

 '•by Melrose and Selkirk to Hawick, with a 

 bye-bag from Melrose to Galashiels." 



The system of open drains had been tried for 

 some time, but with the construction of roads 

 the use of lime and marl became more common. 

 The first in the locality who used lime to any 

 extent, as a manure, was a former minister of 

 Galashiels, the Rev. Alexander Glen, who was, 

 in 1769, translated to Dirleton, and he applied 

 from six to eight carts, of three bolls each, 

 to the acre. About the same period Lord 

 Alemoor drained a morass, near Hairmoss toll 

 bar, on the road from Selkirk to Hawick, and 

 brought thence considerable quantities of marl, 

 which was used as manure for the fields. In 

 1772 marl was exposed for sale at Whitmuirhall, 

 three miles from Selkirk, and afterwards Mr 

 Currie, at an expense of £1000, drained a loch 

 at Greenhead, east of Selkirk, from which he 

 marled his own fields, and sold the surplus to 

 his neighbours at is. the cart load. The quan- 

 tity applied to an acre was about 200 bushels. 

 Dr Douglas was himself a practical improver 

 of land, for in 1797 he purchased the estate of 

 Clarty Hole, which he cultivated, improved, and 

 laid out in fields; but in 181 1 sold it to Sir 

 Walter Scott, who changed its destiny, and gave 

 it the name of Abbotsford. The difficulties of 

 the situation may be further observed, when we 

 say that sometimes Galashiels was flooded to 

 such an extent, that boats came from the Bold- 

 side Ferry to convey the denizens out of their 

 houses. 



Previous to his death in 1820, Dr Douglas 

 had to a great degree seen the fruit of his 

 philanthropic labours. The annual consump- 

 tion of wool had risen to about 20,000 stones, 

 and the flannels had been pronounced by the 

 Board of Trustees as surpassing in fineness any 

 others made in .Scotland. In the agriculture 

 of the district, improvements had proceeded 

 with equal rapidity. Leases of nineteen years 

 had become almost universal. Drains 3 feet 

 deep and filled with stones might be seen on 

 most of the farms. The five-shift husbandry 

 had been generally introduced, and artificial 

 manures were coming into use. Farm houses 

 and buildings had acquired a more respectable 

 appearance, and fields were well enclosed with 

 hedges or stone-walls. Teeswater cattle were 

 taking the place of the old dwarfish hill breeds, 

 and besides Cheviot sheep there were Leicester 

 and half-breds. 



But these were only the beginnings of real 

 progress, for the past thirty years have .seen 

 more advancement in agriculture than any single 

 century before. Even the sagacious Dr Douglas 

 could hardly have conceived the changes that 

 have taken place in his own immediate neigh- 

 bourhood. A short distance from Galashiels, 

 but in the parish of Melrose, is the little Elwand 

 Water, a tributary of the Tweed. In the dale 

 watered by this rivulet there are eight farms, 

 having an aggregate extent of 5000 acres. Little 

 more than thirty years ago, the whole district 

 was a bleak and barren moorland, where inferior 

 Cheviot sheep with difficulty subsisted on the 

 stunted heather and rank rushes, which alone 

 seemed to grow, and only the half of one farm 

 with small patches on the others had come 

 under regular cultivation. Mr Hogghad occupied 

 Glendearg, one of these farms, for one lease, and 

 having obtained a renewal two years before his 

 lease expired, was the pioneer of improvement i n the 

 district. The task was not a promising one, for 

 part of the farm was cold clay, deposited on a 

 moorish subsoil, and it abounded in coarse blocks 

 of greywacke conglomerates. The plough could do 

 little more than remove the thick surface-matting 

 of grass-roots which covered the stones, and 

 these, to the depth of 10 inches, were all removed 

 with handpicks and crowbars— four or five men 

 bein"- employed to remove the stones after one 

 plough. These, however, were utilised without 

 cartage to any distance, and furnished material 

 for filling drains, besides building stone fences 

 5 feet high, around fields varying from 30 

 to 70 acres in extent. The process has been 

 described as follows by Mr Sanderson, who had 



H 



