1839] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



629 



Bent, and their place supplied l>y other beeves, still 

 in hiijh condition, but of much smaller size. On 

 the removal to the sharabiss o^" tlie. second herd, 

 stiHsniallor cattle', in lair condition, were .boticiii, 

 to be initiated inio asiili hiorUeif preiparutory de>.'re(i 

 ol laitina:. These Vere- sold'olt', 'atid'were suc- 

 ceeded by small loari ealtlefpom ihB VVelph nw)un-. 

 'tains, tt) be improved as stores, -Tlie fil'tii siM' of 

 temporary tendnts of the farm were-sruaW sheep, 

 to he wintered. , • .' , • " 



The tcirm, as I havp remarked, consisted of 160 

 acres. Thereat paid was £2 10s per acre, at 

 ^4.80 the pound sterling, twelve dollars per 

 acre, £1,920 for the fiunn. Pa3nng this enor- 

 mous rent, — saddled with heavy taxes, and at 

 a large outlay for manure 'and farm servants, INir. 

 Raine was still accumulatins larae riches upon it. 

 His house was in the style pf a gentleman, and his 

 expenditures on a most liberal scale, bat he owed 

 nobody a farilung. 



Weare poor larrnsrs in this country, Mr. Col- 

 man, very poor larmers, as Alfred Jingle would 

 say, very. Those of lis who do best, are very far 

 from doing as English farmers do. They make 

 more profit per acre from the borders of their fields 

 than we m.ake from our best intervale ; realize as 

 much o-ain in the shifting stock to consume the 

 herbage of a single summer, as we do fi-om grow- 

 ing lor three years the same number of head. 

 Every thing there is made to produce profit. As 

 lar<ie a capital is invested as we invest in a thrifty 

 commercial business. No man can rent a Ikrm 

 who has not a sufficient capital to stock it, work it, 

 and lay out of the price of a year's Jiarvest. The 

 outlay o( capital on a large tiirm is very, great. A 

 lair estimate of the required sum on a farm of a 

 thousand acres, is five thousand pounds sterling. 

 It, would astonish the American larmer to see the 

 book of "bills receivable and payable" of an Eng- 

 lisii lessee of a farm. Yours, 



J. A. I. 



THE AGRICULTURAL STATE OF SCOTLAND. 



From the Cultivator. 



And what has that to do with American husban- 

 dry? it may be asked. Much, we reply. We may 

 learn from what Scotland laas, and what she is in 



" Bleak are tliy hills of" north, 

 . Not fertile are thy jjlains, 

 Bare-lesjged are thy nymphs, 

 . ' ' And Kare { are thy swains." 



»'In 1784, a fe<\^ gfentleHien,- full of z;eal (br-",their 

 coynirV, and it may be -a'httre' love of sdcier'y, 

 iijrmeii themselves uila,U'suYt:'t>f liole and cui;rrrfl* 

 jjlul), in a, botiefe'.houise Tailed thj^ Exchange, siiu- 

 aifed irt Jhe court ol\;hat narne,,uear ^'the market 



cross- of. E^lit>*>V^'''" • ■^^'''-j ^" ^\^^ enjoyment of 

 agreeable conversation and a' good supper, did 

 ihos^ w6rfiiies iaJIOov^r plans li^r the aiiielioration 

 of the high-iands. and Iroai'lhis nucleus arose the 

 now widely extended and powerful Highland So- 

 ciety." * * . " To say what was the state of 

 agiiculture in Scotland at the date of the Ibrmation 

 [ of the Highland Society, would, to treat of it mi- 

 I nutely, require- greater scope than the limits of a 

 periodical admit." " But to take one sweep over 

 iiill and dale, cornfield avA meadow, we may at 

 once pronounce the agriculture ol' Scotland, at that 

 period, to have bceti wretched — execrably bad in 

 all its localities! Hardly any wheat was attempt- 

 ed to be grown ; oats full of thistles was the stan- 

 dard crop, and this was repeated on the greater 

 part of the arable land, while it would produce 

 twice the seed thrown into it: turnips, as part of 

 the rotation of crops?, were unknown; few pota- 

 toes were raised, and no gruss seeds or clover 

 were sown. The whole manure of the farm be- 

 iiig put on a Utile bit ofground near the farmstead, 

 and there they grew some barley of the coarse 

 sort, termed bei'e, wherewith to make bannocks, 

 broth and small beer, or peradventure, if the farm 

 lay at the loot of the Grampians, to brew a portion 

 of ' mountain dew !' Since the writer can recol- 

 lect, a great part of the summer was employed in 

 the now fertile shire of Fife, in pulling thistles out 

 of the oats, and bringing them home lor the horses, 

 or mowing the rushes and other aquatic plains 

 that grew on the bogs around the homestead. 

 Such was the state of Scotland, with but little ap- 

 pearance of amendment, up to 1792." 



The general outline of this picture of wretched 

 husbandry is suited to the present condition of 

 many districts on the eastern borders of our coun- 

 tiy, though the filling up of the picture would re- 

 quire to be somewhat difiercnt. 



"Time, wi'h her ceasele.'js wing, had now 

 broufrht in another century, and on the arrival of 



■are not loo proud, or too conceited, we may learn, 

 from Scotch lessons in farming how to correct t-liem 

 — we may learn from them how to double at least, 

 the products of our agricultural labor. The histo- 

 ry of Scotch agriculture lor the last fifty years, is 

 invaluable to every farmer who would improve 

 his practice. Historyjs wisdom, teaching Ij^ex- 

 ample. . • . 



We .find a valuable essav'iri .the ' Edinbui-trh 

 Quarterly Journal of AgricuUnre,''sho'wing what 

 Scotland was, and what she is,\n regard to her 

 agriculture. She was, in 17S4, two years after the 

 close of our revolution, "as portr as a church 

 movseP'' She is now, perhaps, the.rifhest in agri- 

 cultural products of any poriion of Great Britain, 

 at least so far as regpirds her arable lands'. The 

 vvriter describes the face of the country at the ndd- 

 dle of the last centuiy, as "no better than that nf a 

 bleak, howling wilderness," and well, he adds, 

 might the poet at the inn window indite — 



agriculture, many useful lessons in farming. W 



may learn our own errors in practice ; and, if w^e ithe nineteenih, the richer part of the low country 



had put on another aspect. Beautiful fields of 

 \Vheat were tO' be seen — drilled green crops and 

 clean fallows every where abounded — the bogs 

 had disappeared — the thistles no longer existed. 

 In the Lothians., all this was carried on to a great 

 extent. The farmers forgot themselves — they 

 were coining money, and 'liirht come, light so,' 

 was their motto. They went on in the most reck- 

 less mafiner— thej' beL'an to keep greyhounds, lo 

 be aiembers of .coursing clubs, subscribed to ihe 

 'silver cup,' or ' puppv stakes,' and yelped the 

 same note 'of Iblly as theii" betters in birili, their 

 equals iff ejctravagance aTul .vice. Then followed 

 y,eomanry raices — the good sturdy nag that would 

 be ol use at a, time in the' operations of the firm, 

 was exchanged for a blood steed, and on market- 

 day, instead of rational coifversation about matters 

 connected with their own calling, they beiran to 

 talk 'knowinghf about the turf. At this time, 

 that is, from 1810 to 1814, the agricultural horizon 



