SOILS OF BERWICKSHIRE : WATER. 5 



of clay, and in the arable portion of the Lammermoor district. 

 The lands on Tweedside, and along the banks of the Whitadder 

 and Blackadder, generally consist of a fine deep loam, well fitted 

 for raising luxuriant crops of almost every description, resting 

 commonly on a gravelly subsoil, though sometimes on a tena- 

 cious clay. These tracts of land are the most valuable in the 

 county, and have been long under a course of skilful manage- 

 ment. In the intermediate tract betwixt these rivers the land is 

 less valuable, and degenerates into a stifi" and hard clay, difficult 

 to work, and from resting on a subsoil of stiflF till, liable to be 

 saturated with moisture, and long retaining it when thus satu- 

 rated. The remainder of the arable part consists of a sharp 

 sandy and gravelly soil, well adapted for raising turnips, com- 

 bined in different proportions with loam and clay, easily wrought, 

 and varying in quality and value according to the nature of the 

 subsoil on which it is incumbent. This species of land is highly 

 valued, and those farms which contain a considerable proportion 

 of turnip-soil are generally preferred by the tenantry. In the 

 Agricultural Report of this county, published by the late John 

 Home, Esq., W.S., upwards of thirty years ago, the proportions 

 of the various kinds of soil are thus given : — Deep loam on the 

 principal rivers, 25,410 acres ; clay lands in the How of the 

 Merse, 40,380 ; turnip-soil, 119,780; meadow, moss, and moor 

 in Lauderdale and Lammermoor, 99,870*.^^ 



The water is as various as the soils through which it percolates, 

 and from which it has borrowed its saline constituents. My 

 friend Dr. R. D. Thomson found that the well-water at Eccles, 

 with a specific gi-avity of 1-000792, contained 57*75 grs. of sul- 

 phate of lime, and 29*752 of common salt in the imperial gallon f. 

 This may be an average specimen of the water of the How-of- 

 the-Merse, but the springs which issue from the greywacke and 

 syenitic hills contain doubtless less saline matter. There is a 

 wide difference too between the hard water of the wells that 



* Stat. Ace. Berwicks. p. 3fi4. Penny Cyclopaedia, art. Berwickshire. 

 See also Home's Rectified Report, p 12-13 ; Kerr's View of the Agricul- 

 ture of the County of Berwick, p. 30-37 ; Milne on the Geology of Ber- 

 wickshire, p. 248-251. — "Mr. Couling estimates the cultivated lands in 

 Berwickshire — the arable lands, gardens, meadows, and pastiu'es, at 160,000 

 acres; the uncultivated or waste lands capable of cultivation, at 100,000; 

 and the unprofitable lands or surface occupied by roads, lakes, rivers, canals, 

 rivulets, brooks, farm-yards, quarries, ponds, ditches, hedges, fences, cliffs, 

 craggy declivities, stony places, barren spots, woods and plantations, &c., 

 at 25,600 English statute acres. If we take this estimate, the area of the 

 county in square miles is 446^. The sea-coast of Berwickshire is about 

 seventeen miles and a half in length, from the boundaries of the township 

 of Berwick to its junction with East Lothian." — Penny Cyclopaedia. 



t Loudon's Mag. Nat. Hist. v. ]). 6J6. 



