134 AGRICULTURE. 



surmounted his ecclesiastical troubles, he had time to turn 

 his attention to the spirited exertions which were at that 

 period overcoming, in the county of Berwick, much greater 

 difficulties than had been encountered by the improving 

 agriculturists of his native shire. For several years he 

 vexed his agricultural soul with the books of husbandry 

 which had been published in England, and which " were 

 ill calculated for the soil and climate of Scotland." More- 

 over, " many of them consisted chiefly of uncertain specu- 

 lations on theories not well supported by the history of 

 facts." By these circumstances and considerations Mr. 

 Dickson was led to " select for himself a corner of litera- 

 ture for which the habits of his life had peculiarly qualified 

 him." In the year 1764 he published the first volume of 

 a " Treatise of Agriculture," and the second some years 

 afterwards. With this treatise we, with some compunction, 

 acknowledge ourselves to be entirely unacquainted, and 

 must therefore accept the assurance of Mr. Dickson's 

 biographer, that it " has ever since been held, not only to 

 be the book best adapted to the practice of the Scottish 

 farmer, but, upon the whole, one of the most judicious and 

 practical treatises on the subject ever published in Britain." 

 Soon after the completion of this his first work, Mr. 

 Dickson was translated from Dunse to Whippingham in 

 East Lothian, and there he spent the last six years of a 

 life which was accidentally terminated by a fall from his 

 horse. During that period he prepared for publication, 

 " by years of anxious study," a work of considerable in- 

 terest, of which we propose to give some account to our 

 readers. 



The two branches of Mr. Dickson's education qualified 

 him better than most men who either preceded or have 

 followed him, to trace the analogy between ancient and 

 modern agriculture, and to supply the connecting link. 

 In 1788 this work was printed in Edinburgh by Mr. 

 Dickson's representatives, under the auspices of the then 

 Duke of Buccleugh, in the form in which the materials 



