22 Notes and Sketches. 



crops, unless where the farm has very little or very 

 bad pasture, and then, perhaps, a ridge or two is left 

 untilled, to throw up the weeds which ages have 

 nourished in it to maintain the farmer's cattle. One 

 third of it is manured regularly with all the dung of 

 one year's gathering ; and thus, in three years, all the 

 infield on a farm has been once dunged." This, it 

 will be observed, is precisely the practice that was 

 followed a hundred years earlier, as detailed by the 

 Laird of Troup. The writer goes on to state that 

 " the infield land is generally an excellent soil, full of 

 manure, but stocked with destructive weeds, of which 

 wild oats and knot-grass are among the worst. The 

 average produce in tolerable seasons will not," he says, 

 " exceed from 4 to 5 bolls per acre." In regard to the 

 management of outfield land, the " most proper way," 

 we are told, was to have it divided into eleven parts 

 which were folded upon in succession. The cropping 

 is thus described : " In spring oats are sown, and as 

 soon as the crop is off the ground, it is again ploughed 

 for a second, and so on until it has borne five succes- 

 sive crops of oats ; and then it is left five years lea to 

 throw up whatever poor grass such worn out soil will 

 produce. The first two years the grass is as bad as 

 possible, and though during the other three it thickens, 

 yet, even at the best, it gives but a scanty bite to the 

 cattle." As to the grain produce of the outfields, it 

 is said " the first three crops are nearly alike, and will 

 rarely run beyond four bolls per acre on an average ; 

 and for the last two years they dwindl^f down to 

 betwixt two and three, and often less. The produce 

 of the untoathed fields is much inferior in quantity as 

 well as quality ; and, indeed, the return from faughs 

 in grain will seldom defray the expense of labour and 

 seed ; and the farmers are tempted to plough them 

 though it is to their own loss, merely for the sake of 

 the small quantity of straw which they yield." 



Another of the' Old Statistical writers speaking of 





