2g2 Vieiu of the Situation of FarmefSy ^*c» Ncv. 



which is the rent that the proprietors of all the good lands in 

 the county now aim at, and very nearly 3I. 3s. per boll of the 

 old rent. Long Niddry, inferior with regard to foil, but per- 

 haps in a more defireable fituation, being within a dozen of miles 

 of Edinburgh, pays 6 iirlo^s of wheat, 6 firlors of barley, and 

 30s. of money rent per acre. The corn alone is more than dou- 

 ble of what was formerly paid for Weft Barns. Thefe facls I 

 cannot get the better of; I lind I am going beyond my depth, 

 and acknowledge myfelf furrounded with a thoufand diiliculties, 

 bewildered and loft. This mode of comparing the rents in kind 

 paid long ago, vvith the modern money rent?, prefents us with a 

 new view of the fubjecE^, and, fo far as 1 know, is altogether 

 novel ; bur I am acquainted vvith fo few books upon farming, 

 that I may be far mi ft a ken. 



Little capital was fulHcient to carry on the bufmefs of a farmer, 

 when oats coft 5s. or 6s. per boll, and wheat 12s. or 15s. ; when 

 a good milk cow might be bought for 3I., an able horfe for 7I. 

 or ^1., and when 1000 merks was no defpicable portion for his 

 daughter. Recourfe may be had to the fiars of the county for 

 the prices of grafn at no diftant period, and to them I refer your 

 readers ; but I take the liberty to ftate feme fafls with regard to 

 other matters, and the prices of cattle, that never were generally- 

 known, or are long fmce forgotten. I might carry you back to 

 the days of Regiam Alajefatem, when a fheep coil only three 

 halfpence, and lead you, by an unbroken chain of evidence, to 

 the prices of the prefent day ; but this is no part of my plan, 

 and I ftiall not now afcend higher than the days of our fathers. 



I difcovered lately, among lome old papers, a letter of 1727, 

 from Mr M**** in L******* to his friend, chaplain to a regiment 

 of Scotifli Hollanders, then in garrifon at Menin in Flanders, 

 thanking him very heartily for 14I. 13s. 4d. he had lent, to enable 

 him X.0 flock Jhrne grafs parks he had then taken, probably at Gofs- 

 ford. How. little would fuch a fum avail now-a-days I 



Old Robertfon of Cloglcn, a refpe£l:able Englifli drover, in- 

 forms me, that in 1747, and for feveral years about that time, he 

 bought the beft fix or feven years old runts at 50s. j nay, later 

 than that, Patie Herkes and John Thomfon, then in the meridian 

 of their career, bought Highland cows at CriefF fair at los. 6d. a. 

 piece, and grazed them in the Butterwell-park at Gilmerton till 

 near Yule, when they were fold at 20s. and 21s. to Nift^et, grand- 

 father of your prefent thriving flefhcrs of that name at Hadding- 

 ton. He knocked them down with a bullet, -which he kept in 

 his right hand, while he held their head fteady with his left. 

 Can any of your prefent graziers boaft of as great a proportional 

 profit, in the time even of the late high priq^§ ^ cattle? By the by. 



