Doox I. AGRICULTURE IN THE BRITISH ISLES. \Q 9 



" eager to procure the erection of a pillar to the memory of Mr. Walker." (Farm. 

 Mag., vol. i. p. 164.) 



795. Thejirst notice of a threshing machine is given by Maxwell, in his Transaction* 

 of the Society of Improvers, -tjr. ; it was invented by Michael Menzies, advocate, who 

 obtained a patent for it. Upon a representation made to the society, that it was to be 

 seen at work in several places, they appointed two of their number to inspect it ; and in 

 their report they say that one man would be sufficient to manage a machine which would 

 do the work of six. One of the machines was " moved by a great water wheel and 

 treddles ;" and another, " by a little wheel of three feet in diameter, moved by a 

 small quantity of water." This machine the society recommended to all gentlemen and 

 farmers. (Encyc. Brit, and Ed. Encyc. art. Agr. ; Brown's Treatise on Rural Affairs, 

 Introduction, §c.) 



796. Dawson, of Frogden, in Roxburghshire, is a man to whom Scottish agriculture is perhaps more in- 

 debted than to any other. Findlater, the author of the Survey of Peeblesshire, one of the best judges, terms 

 him the " father of the improved system of husbandry in Scotland." Dawson was born at Harperton, 

 in Berwickshire, a farm of which his father was tenant, in 1734-. At the age of 16 he was sent to a farm 

 in the neighbourhood of Sheffield, and thence into Essex, where he directed his attention chiefly t(. 

 grazing. He afterwards travelled through several other counties of England, " accurately examining 

 the best courses of husbandry, and storing up for his own use whatever seemed likely to be introduced 

 with advantage into his own country." On his return to Scotland he tried, with the consent of his father, 

 the culture of turnips on the farm of Harperton, but he did not commence the culture of this root upon 

 a large scale until he entered on the farm of Frogden on his own account in 1759. Great exertions were 

 required in enclosing, draining, liming, and manuring the arable part of this farm; but the soil being 

 sandy, the expense was ultimately more than repaid. It was here that Mr. Dawson perfected the drill- 

 system of cultivating turnips, but not before he had grown them for several years in the broadcast man- 

 ner. The first drills were drawn in the year 17ri3, and the extent of turnip crop was about 100 acres 

 annually. In a few years the success which attended Mr. Dawson's management enabled him first to 

 rent two contiguous farms, and afterwards to purchase and improve, in that county, the estate of Craden, 

 a property of considerable extent, adjoining Frogden. On these lands he introduced and exemplified, 

 for the first time in Scotland, what has been called the convertible husbandry ; i. e. the growth of clover 

 and sown grasses for three or more years in succession, alternately with corn crops and turnips. 



797. Mr. Dawson urns thejirst to introduce to Scotland the practice of ploughing with tiro horses abreast 

 without the aid 'fa driver. The first ploughman who effected this was James M'Dougal, who, after being 

 14 years overseer to Mr. Dawson, in 1778 took a farm of his own at West Linton, in Peeblesshire, where he 

 died in ls22, aged 82 years. It was the desire of Mr Dawson that justice should be done to the memory 

 of this able and worthy man, whose example, as the Rev. Charles Findlater observes, has had more 

 effect in diffusing the improved system of husbandry than all the premiums ever given by landlords. 

 (Douglas's Surv. of Roxb. ; Farm. Mag., vol. xiii. p. 512.) Mr. Dawson spent the last years of his life in 

 Edinburgh, where he died in January, 1815, in his 81st year, leaving a numerous family in prosperous 

 circumstances. 



798. The character of Dawson is thus given by his biographer in the Fartner's Magazine, and may well 

 be quoted here as a model for imitation " He was exceedingly regular in his habits, and most correct and 

 systematical in all his agricultural operations, which were not only well conducted, but always executed 

 at the proper season. His plans were the result of an enlightened" and sober calculation ; and were per- 

 sisted in, in spite of every difficulty and discouragement, till they were reduced to practice. Every one 

 who knows the obstacles that are thrown in the way of all innovations in agriculture, by the sneers of 

 prejudice and the obstinacy of ignorance, and not unfrequently by the evil offices of jealousy and male, 

 volence, must be aware, that none but men of very strong minds, and of unceasing activity, are able to 

 surmount them. Such a man was Mr. Dawson ; and to this single individual may be justly ascribed the 

 merit of producing a most favourable change in the sentiments, in regard to the trial of new experiments, 

 as well as in the practice, of the farmers of Scotland. The labouring classes were not less indebted to this 

 eminent person for opening up a source of employment, which has given bread to the young and feeble in 

 almost the only branches of labour of which they are capable in merely rural districts. Most of his ser- 

 vants continued with him for many years ; and such as had benefited by his instructions and advice were 

 eagerly engaged to introduce their master's improvements in other places. This benevolence, which often 

 sought for objects at a distance that were not personally known to him, was displayed, not only in pecu- 

 niary donations, while the giver frequently remained unknown, but was strikingly evinced in the attention 

 which he paid to the education of the children of his labourers, for whom he maintained teachers at his 

 own expense. If fame were always the reward of great and useful talents, there are few men of any age 

 or country that would live longer in the grateful remembrance of posterity than the subject of this 

 memoir." (Farm. Mag., vol. xvi. p. 168.) 



799. As the leading features of practical agricultural improvement in Britain during the 

 eighteenth century, and to the present time, we may enumerate the following : — The gra- 

 dual introduction of a better system of rotation since the publication of Tull's Horse- 

 hoeing Husbandry, and other agricultural works, from 1700 to 1750; the improvement 

 of livestock by Bakewell, about 1760; the raised drill system of growing turnips, the 

 use of lime in agriculture, and the convertible husbandry, by Pringle, and more especially 

 by Dawson, about 1765; the improved swing plough, by Small, about 1790; and the 

 improved threshing machine, by Meikle, about 1795. As improvements of compara- 

 tively limited application might be mentioned, the art of tapping springs, or what has 

 been called Elkington's mode of draining, which seems to have been discovered by Dr. 

 Anderson, from principle, and Mr. Elkington, by accident, about 1760, or later; and the 

 revival of the art of irrigation, by Boswell, about 1780. The field culture of the potato, 

 shortly after 1750 ; the introduction of the Swedish turnip, about 1790 ; of spring wheat, 

 about 1795; of summer wheat, about 1800; and of mangold wurtzel more recently, 

 have, with the introduction of other improved field plants, and improved breeds of animals, 

 contributed to increase the products of agriculture ; as the enclosing of common field lands 

 and wastes, and the improvements of mosses and marshes, have contributed to increase tlis 

 produce and salubrity of the general surface of the country. 



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