424 History of the English Landed Interest, 



creased population for meat as well as bread would liave liad 

 a deterrent effect on the devastations (we can use no milder 

 term) of the plough. But on the mixed farm of the period 

 the new grass and root crops enabled the tenant to combine 

 with the husbandry of cereals the industry of the grazier, and 

 no appreciable diminution in the national meat supply took 

 place. 



Another important feature in the farming of the period was 

 the progress made by the heavy-land tenant. What Tull and 

 the turnip had done for the sandy soils, Smith of Deanston, 

 and the drain-pipe were now to do for the clay lands. But 

 towering in their importance above anything else, even above 

 the application of steam as a motive power to the farmer's 

 machinery and market produce, were the incalculable services 

 rendered by the chemist. 



There would have been no practical use as yet in publishing 

 in book form the results of experiments made in the laboratory, 

 for farmers still required ocular demonstration of a chemical 

 success in the field itself. It was in vain for the Earl of Dun- 

 donald to attempt to show the intimate connection that exists 

 between agriculture and chemistry; because, though his books ^ 

 contained a reservoir of valuable facts, they were set down by 

 the rude farmers to whom they were addressed as the works 

 of a visionary ; and, like the still more able writings of De 

 Saussure, treated merely as additions to those chemical curiosi- 

 ties which had emanated from the pens of Hook, Kircher, and 

 Bradley. Equally futile apparently were both Hunter's 

 scientific essays ^ and Home's prize treatise,^ both of which 

 sought to attribute the slow progress of agriculture to its 

 want of touch with science. 



"When we discussed this branch of our subject before, we 



^ Archibald Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald, wrote two works — A Treatise 

 showing the Intimate Connection between Agriculture and Chemistry, 

 London, 1795, and The Principles of Chemistry applied to the Improve- 

 ment of Agriculture, 1799. Unfortunately, neither of these works are 

 contained in the National Library, vide Agri. Biog., sub voc. " Cochrane," 

 J. Donaldson, 1854. 



* The Georgical Essays. Alexander Hunter, M.D., F.R.S., 1769. 



** Henry Home. Lord Kaimes' chief work was 27ie Gentleman Farmer. 



