CHAPTER V. 



FIRST IMPROVERSA SMALL SOCIETY OF FARMERS 

 IN BUCHAN AN EARLY AGRICULTURAL ESSAY. 



IT is believed the very first person to introduce 

 agricultural improvements effectively into the north 

 of Scotland was an English lady Elizabeth Mordaunt 

 who was married to the eldest son of the Duke of 

 Gordon in 1706, the year before the Union. She was 

 a daughter of the Earl of Peterborough, himself a 

 great improver, and she brought down to the Duke of 

 Gordon's estates " English ploughs, with men to work 

 them, and who were acquainted with fallowing here- 

 tofore utterly unknown in Scotland." She taught 

 the Morayshire people how to make hay, and set them 

 the example of planting moors and sowing foreign 

 grasses. About ten years later the Earl of Haddington 

 began to plant extensively, and introduced other im- 

 provements, including sowing clover and other grass 

 seeds. Nearly contemporaneous with him was Sir 

 Archibald Grant, second baronet of Monymusk, who 

 writes " Soon after the Union, husbandry and manu- 

 factures were in low esteem. Turnips raised in fields 

 for cattle by the Earl of Rothes, and very few others, 

 were wondered at. Wheat was almost confined to 

 East Lothian. Enclosures were few and planting 

 very little ; no repair of roads, all bad, and very few 

 wheel carriages." 



On July 13th, in the year 1723, there was instituted 

 " the Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of 

 Agriculture in Scotland." Its membership included 

 42 peers and 260 commoners, of whom 4 peers and 



