138 Memoirs of John Cockburn Efq» April 



enabled your cattle to work more, and yet will make them look 

 better, than when ftarved and idle. If you feed them in the 

 houfe, you have their dung ; if you feed them abroad, you 

 have their dung laid, without more trouble, upon proper ground 

 (for I reckon you feed them where you incline their dung 

 fliould do you fervice) ; and your hogs will feed with them, or 

 juft after them, upon the refufe of the clover which falls from 

 the cattle. The more land you dung this year, the more corn 

 and grafs you'll have next year, which will by degrees draw 

 you into more cattle, which helps you flill to better crops ; fo 

 if once you begin, it advances in a circle, the one year's pro- 

 duct helping the next, and each increafing the other, till you 

 have more plenty of all ; and when the land is brought into 

 good cafe (to the doing of which dung is a great help) too 

 dry or too wet and cold feafons don't do quite fo much hurt 

 as when the land is very poor. 



* You fay the rye-grafs, fown three years ago, does not an- 

 fwer this year ; but I think if it did your cattle fervice in win- 

 ter, and that you ate it till the 20th May, you cannot complain. 

 It may poflibly (if you have hained it all fummer, as grafs 

 which hath been eaten fo long ought to have been) be of fer- 

 vice to you in the end of the year; and if you have had early and 

 late crops from it, your advantage is not lefs than if it had 

 given you a crop of hay in fummer. Soot, nor none of the 

 hot dungs, laft long ; they naturally wafte foon, and if laid 

 on thick would burn up the ground. Upon damp cold land 

 they feldom fail raifing one good crop, which yields more dung, 

 whether when fed upon the ground or otherwife ; fo, they 

 furnifh you with that ingredient for helping you to more good 

 crops -, though at iirfl they produce but one tliemfelves, yet in 

 the confequence they do more. 



* There is no doubt but that graffes fown with wheat will 

 grow ftrong by harveft \ but as the wheat flraw is of ufe for 

 other things than feeding of cattle, it does not improve the 

 flraw of wheat, as it would do the draw that is ufed for food. 

 I am of your opinion, that you may come to make wheat and 

 rye bread as cheap as peas. Good crops of wheat are more 

 frequent than good crops of peas. One acre of land will, if 

 in uood condition, for moft part, yield much more wheat bread 

 than that fame acre will of peas j the labouring of the wheat is 

 as cheap, if not cheaper, than that of the peas, the feafon 

 making it fo for the mofl part. There is no comparifon be- 

 tween the two breads for wholefomenefs and goodnefs. Here 

 they don't grind nor drefs the flour fo fine, when made for 

 :cmmon bread fcr families, as is generally done in Scotland; 



for 



