148 SCOTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 



Among the learned or otherwise illustrious individuals to whom this 

 district of Lothian has given birth, were the accomplished Hamilton of Ban- 

 gour, and Wilkie, author of the " Epigoniad." John, earl of Stair, so eminent 

 as a soldier and statesman, resided long in this county, which he " improved 

 by his example." With respect to the agriculture of West Lothian, this illustrious 

 individual, on retiring from the bustle of public life, was the first to improve 

 the old by the introduction of new maxims of husbandry. By steady practical 

 experiments, he showed the vast benefits resulting from the new system ; and 

 his example being imitated by the patriotic earl of Hopetoun, others followed 

 in the same track, till, witli little interruption, the system reached the high 

 state of perfection which it now presents. The art of horticulture and a taste 

 for gardening and botany, appear to have been cultivated early in the reign of 

 James VL Ray, in his " Itinerary," mentions that he had seen in BaiUie 

 Stewart's garden divers exotic plants* — some of them such as he had not 

 before met vnth — and " more," says he, " than one could have hoped to find 

 in so northernly and cold a country." Next to agriculture, the traffic in coal 

 employs the greatest number of hands. Cotton manufactories, breweries, 

 distilleries, soap boiling, the salt pans and fisheries along the Forth, tanneries, 

 and bleaching fields, are the principal sources of domestic trade and industry. 

 The linen manufacture, for which Linlithgow was once famous, has been 

 superseded by the less durable but more lucrative fabric of cotton, for the 

 encouragement of which every facility has been afforded. 



Mineral springs of various efficacy are found in this county, but have lost 

 their early attractions. Silver and lead mines were formerly wrought in the 

 parishes of Linlithgow and Bathgate, but as the expense exceeded the produce, 

 the .work was discontinued. Lime has superseded the use of shell and stone 

 marl, in which the district abounds, and, with brick and potters' clay, red chalk 

 and fullers' earth, comprises the useful class of minerals with which nature has 

 enriched the county. The public roads are all excellent — the Bathgate road 

 proverbially so. The soil is various, but generally of a rich loam, and highly 

 cultivated, interspersed with thriving woods, and yielding abundant harvests. Of 

 tlie liberal and enlightened system of public education so happily adopted 

 throughout the whole district of Lothian, Linlithgow has an ample share. Parish 

 schools and private academies, conducted under the same discipline as in the 

 capital, afford every facility for the acquisition of the ornamental as well as useful 

 branches of study. At the Reformation, the school of Linlithgow was taught 



• A list of these will be found in Sibbald's history. 



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