310 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book VIL 



iniich increafed the number of inhabitants upon his eflate, even 

 doubled them, as he tells me. And, I am perfuaded, he does not 

 exaggerate, but that the number is truly greater ; for I am inform- 

 ed that an addition lately made to the town of Stonehaven, which 

 is called the New Town, is all peopled by feuers, tenants, and cotta- 

 gers of Mr Barclay. Now this, 1 hold, is real improvement ; and 

 a man who improves in that way, I think a great benefactor to his 

 country. And fuch improvers muft have great pleafure, when they 

 rcflcd: that they not only add to their own fortune, but to the 

 produce and the population of the country ; and it is a way of 

 making money very beneficial to the country, and moft honourable 

 to themfelves. But there is another way by which Mr Barclay has ferv- 

 ed the county of Kincardine; and that is by iniroducing a method of 

 farming, by which the value of land, in the county, lias been won- 

 derfully raifed : He taught us firft how to plough well, by giving 

 us the ufe of the Norfolk plough, which makes better v/ork, more 

 of it in the fame time, and is eafier drawn than any other plough 

 iifed in Scotland. Now, to plough v;ell is the firft leflbn of farm- 

 ing *. Next, he taught us how to crop our land properly, and 

 then to lay it down to grafs, in fuch a manner as to make it more 

 profitable than it was in corn. By this fyilem of farming, which he 

 has given to the county, he has, as I have faid, raifed the value of 

 land in it wonderfully ; of which I have a proof from my own ef- 

 tate, where one of the farms, which was let by my father about 40 

 years ago, for 17 1. 10 s. was let again, 16 years ago, for 36 1. and 

 is now let for 100 1. This increafe of my rent, and of the rent of 

 the other gentlemen of the county, is to be afcribed to the change of 

 the method of farming, which Mr Barclay has introduced : For it is 

 not only my opinion, but the opinion of all the old experienced far- 

 mers, with whom 1 have converfed upon the fubjedt, that, by the old 



mode 

 * It was a famous faying of old Cato the Ccnfor, who was a great farmer, that the 

 fiift leflfon of farming was bene arare, and the fecond, beneftircorare. 



