126 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. Part I. 



land, at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, were so be- 

 numbed with oppression or poverty, that the most able instructor in husbandry would have 

 made nothing of them. Fletcher of Salton, who lived in tlie best part of Scotland, and in 

 the end of the seventeenth century, describes their situation as truly deplorable. In 

 fact, many farms remained unoccupied ; even tenants rarely accepted of leases, at least 

 they were shy, unwilling to accept them for any considerable number of years : hence 

 improvement of every kind was totally neglected, and the general poverty o^ the te- 

 nantry necessarily occasioned landed property to be of little value j because, while rents 

 were trifling, they were also ill paid, which of course placed many proprietors in some- 

 thing like a state of mendicity. 



772. John Cockbum, of Ormiston, East Lothian, a spirited individual, who arose at 

 this time, and to whom the agriculture of Scotland is much indebted, deserves to be 

 mentioned. He was born in 1685, and succeeded to the family estate of Ormiston in 

 1714. Cockburn, at an early period of his life, saw tha evils of the feudal system; 

 and justly considered the qualities supposed to compose the character of a feudal 

 chieftain as badly calculated to promote internal improvement. He saw that this was 

 only to be done by forming and extending a middle rank of society, and increasing 

 their prosperity. In fact, as an able writer, Brown, the founder of the Farmer s 

 Magazine, has remarked, '* the middling ranks are the strength and support of every 

 nation. In former times, what we now call middling classes were not known, or at 

 least little known in Scotland, where the feudal system reigned longer than in England. 

 After trade was introduced, and agriculture improved, the feudal system was necessarily 

 overturned; and proprietors, like other men, began to be estimated according to their 

 respective merits, without receiving support from the adventitious circumstances under 

 which they were placed. 



773. When Cockburn succeeded to the estate of Ormiston, in 1714, the art of agriculture was imperfectly 

 understood, and the condition of the tenantry was so reduced, that it could not be expected to see im- 

 provements undertaken, unless the strongest encouragement was previously held out. This was done 

 by Cockburn, even in his father's lifetime. As Robert Wight, one of the Ormiston tenants, had early- 

 shown an uncommon spirit to enter into Cockburn's views, being one of the first farmers in Scotland 

 who inclosed by ditch and hedge, and planted hedgerow trees at his own proper charge, he was singled 

 out for favour, and in 1718 received a lease of the Murrays, or Muir-house farm, of an uncommon long 

 endurance. The lease was for thirty-eight years, and the rent 750/. Scottish money ; but upon paying ai 

 fine or grassum of 1200/. Scots, at the expiration of that term, a renewal of the lease was to be gsanted 

 for nineteen years more, and so on from nineteen to nineteen years in all time coming. The two sub- 

 scribing witnesses to the deed were Sir John Inglis of Cramond, Bart., and John Hepburn, Esq. of 

 Humble, gentlemen invited on the occasion by Cockburn, in order that his example might animate them 

 with the like liberal and patriotic desire to improve the agriculture of their respective properties. Alex- 

 ander Wight, eldest son of Robert above named, possessed the house of Muir farm by tacit recolation till 

 175, at which period, agreeable to the plan adopted for encouraging substantial improvements,, a lease 

 was.granted to him for thirty-eight years, and three lives therein named. This tenant, like his father, 

 having entered warmly into Cockburn's measures, got that lease cancelled in 1734, when a new one was 

 granted for nineteen years, renewable for every nineteen years in all time coming, upon payment of a 

 fine equal to one years' rent of the premises. These were leading examples to Scottish landlords, and 

 held out to other tenants of the Cockbum estate a noble encouragement to undertake improvements, 

 seeing that their benevolent landlord was so ready to reward them. 



774. Thus the foundation of Scottish improvement was laid by granting long leases. 

 Many people at this time may think, that such a length of lease was unnecessary, and 

 that the distinguished personage of whom we are speaking might have accomplished his 

 object by granting leases of a more limited endurance. We would request such persons 

 to reflect upon the state of the country, and the actual condition of the tenantry at the 

 iperiod under consideration. We ought not to judge of the prosperity of measures 

 then employed, to introduce and encourage improvement, according to the rules of 

 the present day, when tenants possess knowledge and capital sufficient for carrying 

 through the most diflScult and arduous undertakings. Let it also be remembered, that 

 both knowledge and capital were the undoubted result of the ameliorated system then 

 introduced. Cockburn laid the first stone of the system ; his brethren in different 

 quarters assisted in rearing the fabric, though, perhaps, their aid was not in one instance 

 so munificent. The success which accompanied it served, however, to convince almost 

 the whole landholders of Scotland, that the surest way of extending improvements 

 was to give the tenantry an interest in their accomplishment. Hence the bond of 

 connection betwixt proprietors and tenants in Scotland is formed upon more liberal 

 principles than prevail in any other country with which we are acquainted. No man 

 in Scotland, at least very few men, will enter to the possession of land unless the 

 security of a lease is previously granted ; and proprietors in general are so sensible 

 of the benefit of that tenure, that few of them refuse to grant it for such a number of 

 years as both parties may consider best adapted to the system of management meant to 

 be exercised. {Ed. Encyc. art. Agr.) 



115. In 1723, a number of landholders formed themselves into a Society of Improvers in 

 the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland. The Earl of Stair, one of their most active mem- 

 bers, is said to have been the first who cultivated turnips in that country. This society had 

 exerted itself in a very laudable manner, and apparently with considerable success, in intro- 



