Ch. v.] SUMMER FALLOW, 55 



exception to the remark is beans, which, though probably drawing more 

 nourishment from the soil than they return in the shape of food, yet are 

 generally viewed as a fallow crop, and are constantly sown under that 

 denomination on those heavy soils which are found appropriate to their 

 production : properly speaking, however, they cannot be considered in that 

 light unless when sown in drills, or dibbled at wide distances which admit 

 of their being horse-hoed, and thus keeping the land clean. 



To the introduction of these crops into our farming system the improved 

 state of agriculture in this country is mainly due, and there can be little 

 doubt that the extension of that system will still further tend to its improve- 

 ment. Their culture will, however, be separately treated under their dis- 

 tinct heads, to which we refer our observations, our pi-esent object being 

 confined to an account of 



SUMMER FALLOW. 



The practice of summer fallow dates in England from the earliest cultiva- 

 tion of the land. It was introduced into this island by the ancient Romans, 

 of whose farming it formed a part of the constant course, and who conducted 

 it in the same manner as at present ; and it has been continued up to this 

 day on most of the heavy soils throughout the kingdom, though its object 

 was, in former times, rather to allow the ground time to rest from the 

 production of corn crops — then the only ones grown — than to clean it 

 by tillage. 



It is, however, a singular fact in the history of Scotch agriculture, that 

 although fallowing in the present mode, for the purpose of cleaning the 

 soil, had been long prevalent in England, and, consequently, could not have 

 been unknown in Scotland — particularly after the connexion which took 

 place between the two nations in the time of James VI. — yet it does not 

 seem to have passed the northern border before the close of the seventeenth 

 century ; for in a book entitled ' Husbandrie Anatomized,' which was pub- 

 lished in Edinburgh in 1697, and is supposed to be the oldest known 

 treatise on Scottish rural economy, we find the fallowing of land mentioned 

 in a manner which shows that it was not then known in that country, and 

 it is recommended by the author, who had been an officer of the Cameronian 

 regiment, serving in King William's wars, as a practice with which he had 

 become acquainted in Flanders. We learn, indeed, from other accounts 

 that the first person who actually set the example of fallowing land upon 

 his estate, in Scotland, by preparing it for a crop of corn with frequent 

 ploughings and harrowings, was either Thomas, sixth Earl of Haddington, 

 or, as some say, it was introduced by one John Walker, tenant at Beanston, 

 in East Lothian, who was the chief of a family long distinguished in that 

 district as superior farmers, at the commencement of the last century. From 

 the success attending the experiment, the practice then rapidly spread over 

 the country, and we are told, in ' Maxwell's Collections,' that it afterwards 

 became customary upon the strong soils every fifth or sixth year, but 

 was not general until about the year 17'24. Mr. Walker is also under- 

 stood to have been the first person in Scotland who sowed wheat upon 

 what was then termed out-field land, — or that which lies far from the 

 homestead, and is commonly of indifferent quality, — which, previous to the 

 introduction of fallow, could not have been effected with profit, and under 

 the old system was only practicable upon in-Jield or crop grounds*. 



* It was formerly proposed to erect a pillar to the memory of Mr. Walker, with an 

 inscription detailing these circumstances ; but, although they eminently merit record, 

 the intention has not been carried into efiect, Seethe Farm, Mag., vol. i. p. 161, and 

 the East Lothian Rep., p. 92, 



