RENNIE. 



781 



was completely fenced, thoroughly drained, well 

 manured, and most perfectly cleaned of every kind 

 of annual weed. This was effected hy drilled 

 crops, which were horse-hoed, hand-hoed, and 

 thereafter, if necessary, hand-picked. In short, 

 his whole operations were conducted in such a 

 masterly style, and the culture of his farm in every 

 respect so perfect, that it was not only vastly in- 

 creased in productive value, but had the appearance 

 of a well kept garden. 



At the earlier periods of Mr Rennie's life, the 

 custom of dividing farm grounds into the distinc- 

 tion of "infield" and "outfield," had not become 

 entirely obsolete, the former being the only por- 

 tion which was manured, and which, from being 

 constantly under tillage, was full of all sorts of 

 weeds, annual and perennial ; and the latter never 

 receiving manure at all, except what it casually 

 obtained in the depasturing of cattle, and conse- 

 quently, scarcely repaying the trouble and expense 

 of cultivation. In these times, also, a great part 

 of East Lothian was held by the tenants under old 

 leases, some of whom paid rent wholly in grain, and 

 others partly in grain and partly in money, and nearly 

 all were burthened with restrictions of thirlage to 

 particular mills, and payments in kind. Farms were 

 only beginning to be extended in size to the more 

 modern scale, and the average might be about two 

 hundred acres, although many were smaller, and few 

 reached the length of three hundred. These re- 

 quired from three to four ploughs, which were each 

 worked by four horses. At the present time, many 

 of the farms exceed five hundred acres in extent, 

 and are worked by eight or ten ploughs ; and the 

 natural consequence of such enlargements has been 

 a diminution of the number of farmers by more 

 than one-fourth. According to lord Kaimes, in 

 his Gentleman Farmer, the usual rotation of crops 

 ut that time, upon the best infield land, was fal- 

 low, wheat, barley, oats, peas, wheat, barley, oats ; 

 while, upon inferior soils, a less scourging succes- 

 sion was practised. The method adopted in 

 gathering in the harvest was also imperfect. From 

 the reapers being hired for the season at fixed 

 wages, it became their object, as they supposed it 

 their interest, to hurry through matters, without 

 much regard to the accuracy of their operations ; 

 the consequence of which was, that the grain was 

 most imperfectly and very irregularly cut. From 

 most of the farm-servants being employed at the 

 same work, it was afterwards allowed to remain in 

 the fields, until the whole reaping process was 

 finished, at which time the stacks were more ex- 

 peditiously than compactly built, were far too 

 many in number, and were often left for a consid- 

 erable time destitute of covering. As to the in- 

 door management, little need be said of the im- 

 mense improvement which the invention of the 

 thrashing-machine necessarily brought along with 

 it, and which can only be duly estimated by those 

 wbo remember the time and toil which were ex- 

 pended in manual labour. Indeed, taken all in all, 

 the business of thrashing was one of the most 

 troublesome connected, in former days, with the 

 operations of a corn farm, and even then without the 

 most irksome surveillance of the people employed, 

 it was never perfectly performed. The winnow- 

 ing, or cleaning of the grain, was also another ever- 

 lasting process, the very remembrance of whose 

 difficulties is enough to sanctify the memory of the 

 man who invented a method for their cure. The 

 old heavy Scotch plough was in general use, and 



few farmers were possessed either of rollers or 

 drilling-machines. This cumbrous ploughing in- 

 strument came at length to be superseded by one 

 of a smaller construction, something on the Dutch 

 model, and resembling the Rotherham one ; and 

 both at last were exploded, on the introduction of 

 the lighter and improved one of Mr Small. 



In 1787 Mr Meikle having invented the Drum 

 Thrashing Machine, one of the most important and 

 beneficial discoveries which the agricultural art 

 owes to mechanical genius, Mr Rennie, with the 

 generous enthusiasm which characterized him, im- 

 mediately exerted himself in behalf of the unas- 

 suming, but most indefatigable and meritorious dis- 

 coverer, and caused him to erect the first machine 

 in the county, worked with horses, on the Phan- 

 tassie property, the only previous one being that 

 of the inventor himself, at Knowsmill, near Tyn- 

 ingham, which was impelled by water. The merit 

 of the discovery of the thrashing-machine by 

 Andrew Meikle, like the discoveries of Bacon, 

 Harvey, Watt, Davy, and other great and fortu- 

 nate names, was, after his death, disputed, and by 

 various people. Most of these claims were easily 

 disposed of; but by the friends of the late Sir 

 Francis Kinloch, a more serious and determined 

 opposition was set up, it being contended for by 

 them, that Mr Meikle's machine was copied and 

 imitated from a model sent by Sir Francis to Mr 

 Meikle, at Houston Mill, in 1784. In a letter, 

 originally inserted in a pamphlet published by Mr 

 Sheriff, entitled a " Reply to an Address to the 

 Public, but more particularly to the Landed In- 

 terest of Great Britain and Ireland, on the subject 

 of the Thrashing- Machine," and afterwards copied 

 by the conductor into the forty-eighth number ot 

 the Farmer's Magazine, Mr Rennie came forward 

 as the defender of his venerable friend, who was 

 then between eighty and ninety years of age ; and 

 therein gave such a lucid, well-arranged, and un- 

 answerable statement of the historical facts relat- 

 ing to the discovery, so far as the claims of Sir 

 Francis Kinloch and Mr Meikle were respectively 

 concerned, that he may be said to have for ever 

 settled the controversy. From his temperance and 

 regularity, Mr Rennie kept himself in the posses- 

 sion of general good health, although his constitu- 

 tion was not naturally a very strong one; as, in 

 early youth, he was subject to haemoptysis, and 

 pectoral complaints, after either severe exertion, or 

 exposure to cold. Probably the precautions and 

 restrictions which these threatenings subjected him 

 to, however seemingly the harbingers of evil, ope- 

 rated in every respect beneficially, as they not only 

 tended to the formation of habits which led to the 

 prolongation of life, but to give a peculiar stamp 

 to the character of the man. Although no ancho- 

 rite, when the conviviality of the occasion required, 

 the habitual course of his living was abstemious. 

 He went early to bed, and, until bodily infirmities 

 began to creep upon him a few years before his 

 death, was an early riser, and fond of morning ex- 

 ercise. He died on the 6th October, 1828. In 

 personal appearance be was slender, and never, 

 even in his better years, exhibited any tendency 

 towards corpulency, a circumstance which probably 

 in a great, measure originated in the activity of his 

 mental and corporeal habits. In stature he ap- 

 peared to be six feet, was dark haired, with a 

 quick eye, and striking countenance. In a moral 

 point of view, and in all the relations of life, his 

 character was highly estimable. As a parent he 



