122 Notes and Sketches. 



" a young gentleman of a good stock, and addicted to 

 husbandry," to leave his home at Hermiston, near 

 Edinburgh, and settle upon the farm of Monkshill, 

 formed out of several smaller farms, and extending 

 to 1130 acres. He gave him a lease of 63 years, with 

 power to assign or sublet ; the rent, running from 

 Is. 7d. to 2s. 4d. per acre, to increase progressively 

 after ten years, until it doubled. " I hastened there, 

 greedy to receive instruction from a gentleman who 

 makes a figure by his publications ; but I was much 

 disappointed in finding neither him nor his overseer at 

 home. All I saw was a field of turnip, one of oats, 

 and one of barley, all in good order." So writes the 

 tourist Surveyor. 



Concerning the famous tenant of Monkshill, it may 

 here be said that he was a man of liberal education ; he 

 had studied chemistry at Edinburgh, under Dr. Cullen, 

 and, in 1780, received the degree of LL.D., at Aber- 

 deen. Twelve years before he had married Miss Seton, 

 of Mounie, by whom he had thirteen children. He 

 was a contributor to the first edition of the Encyclo- 

 paedia Britannica, and wrote the first report on the 

 Agriculture of Aberdeenshire, published in 1794, Ardent 

 in temperament, independent in his style of thought, 

 and very outspoken, he took the keenest possible in- 

 terest in the agriculture and social life of the region ; his 

 ideas, to which he never hesitated to give vent in one 

 form or another, being not unfrequently in direct con- 

 flict with the established order of things, a circumstance 

 which seems in no way to have disturbed his equani- 

 mity, marred his good humour, or cooled his enthu- 

 siasm. He was the originator, conductor, and chief 

 contributor to a well-known weekly publication called 

 " The Bee, " carried on for several years, and in which 

 agricultural, scientific, and other questions were dis- 

 cussed ; and his separate publications, which include a 

 great variety of subjects, from the construction of Chim- 

 neys to the nature and formation of Peat Moss, form 



