INTRODUCTION xli 



of his contemporaries regarded such as he — a lucky placeman 

 indulging in the luxury of an expensive and impracticable 

 hobby. In justice to those contemporaries it must be remem- 

 bered that he enjoyed opportunities denied to most of them 

 in the matter of a safe income, the training in affairs on a 

 large scale, the experience of a capital, relatively as great a 

 school of enlightenment as now, and the general progress of 

 a country that was a century ahead of Scotland. But his 

 enthusiasm embraced wider interests than the care of his 

 estate. He saw that the only stimulant to dispel the prevail- 

 ing sloth, or rather apathy, lay in the creation of incentives 

 to effort in local industries, new markets, and the healthy play 

 of supply and demand. In his own fashion this correspondence 

 reveals in him a phenomenal anticipation of Adam Smith. 

 His views are far in advance of his day. No writer of the 

 century gives so luminous and incisive a criticism of the 

 Scottish peasant farmer before modern progress overtook him. 

 Unfortunately he is in such deadly earnest that he can see no- 

 thing of the farmer's merits. In farming practice Cockburn 

 had little to learn from us moderns, though our implements, our 

 fencing, and our deep draining were beyond him. In forestry 

 and gardening he is ingeniously suggestive. He has such 

 unusual trees as silver and spruce firs, sweet chesnuts, oriental 

 planes, evergreen oaks, and maples. He gets seed from France, 

 Turkey, and Scandinavia. He says nothing of flowers, 

 or of a greenhouse, but he has wall, standard, and espalier 

 fruit trees ; bell shades and hot beds ; and uses mats to pro- 

 tect from wind and frost. He has the usual fruits, including 

 even mulberries and quinces, but he has no strawberries. On 

 points in which Scotland was long notably far behind he is 

 stimulating to a degree, such as the entertainment for 

 travellers in inns, the absence of fruits and vegetables, the 

 low diet of the people and its want of variety, their under- 

 fed animals, their neglect of manure, and their mean and 

 unsightly houses. 



