Book I. 



AGRICULTURE OF MIDLOTHIAN. 



1 179 



enabled to afford more rent ; and in fact give more than an 

 actual farmer, whose sole dependence is uuon hustiandrv, is 

 able to pay ; while their exertions in agriculture, though in 

 general founded on good principles, commonly end in disap- 

 pointment to themselves, for want of that unceasing attention 

 which is indispensable to good cultivation, but which then- 

 other avocations prevent them from bestowing." 



The moor land farmers, as if in conformity to the soil, wh ! c h 

 has undergone very little melioration, and to the climate, which 

 is naturally severe, seem still to retain a strong cast of the man- 

 ners of their forefathers, and to live and toil under the same 

 uncomfortable circumstances. Their houses are damp, smoky, 

 and diminutive; their fare simple and limited; and their 

 labours hard and even oppressive. But they have days of re- 

 laxation, in which thev enjoy themselves at fairs and markets; 

 their marriage festivities are almost boundless, and their 

 funerals are pompous and ostentatious. Religion is maintained 

 in all the austerity of Oliver Cromwell and the covenant. 



These farmers'are the onlv ones in a county containing a 

 capital town, who are likelv to better thsir condition. Being 

 inured to the practice of the most rigid economy, they will, 

 when translated to a warmer climate and more genial soil, very 

 forcibly feel a melioration in their circumstances; and if thev 

 have fortitude enough (as the first race of them generally will) 

 to persevere in their original habits of frugality, they may, by 

 dint of mere saving, at the rate, perhaps, of two and a halt per 

 cent vearly on their capital, accumulate, in a lifetime, a sum 

 that mav be esteemed considerable. But this thriving state 

 will only- last during the first generation. Their sons ha- 

 bituated in time to an easier mode of life, will, amid the great ^^ or stools, table, chest of drawers, clothes-pre*,, sc 



More need for weeding on the arable lands of this county than 

 in those of any other in Scotland ; supposed from more town 

 manure being' Used. The town manure contains the seeds 

 brought in from the country in bay and straw, which are of 

 various kinds; but chielly wild mustard, wild radish, dock, 

 thistle, poppv, couch-grass, &c. 



12. Livestock: 

 Little attention was formerly paid to this department ; but 



it is now conducted on improved principles. A great many 

 cows are kept in Edinburgh, and well kept as well as judi- 

 ciously selected. See the art. Dairy in Sup. to Eiicy. Brit. 

 art. Agriculture. Galloway and Ayrshire cows prefemd, and 

 Clydesdale horses. Some" buffaloes of the Mysore variety in- 

 troduced by Col. Murray : not supposed to turn to any advan- 

 tage, either as milkers, or for work, or the butcher, but form a 

 variety in parks. Lord Morton subsequently introduced the 



quagga(£\iuuse'<<*W«)°n his P ark at . Wort i'?. HaU ^ r .Z 

 same purpose. Bees a very popular species of hve stock with 



all classes. 



13. Rural Economy. 



Well supplied with work-people from the highlands and Ire- 

 land. With the exception of some farm servants in the imme- 

 diate vicinity of Edinburgh, they are, in general, orderly and 

 moral. Children taught in the parish schools ; reading at one 

 shilling and four-pence, writing and arithmetic at two shillings 

 and sixpence per quarter ; Latin, S.-C in proportion. T he cot- 

 tages of ploughmen consist generally of two rooms on the 

 ground floor, with a nigstye, and 100 square yards, <"• upward^ 

 of garden ground. The furniture consists of two beds, a few 



luxury with which they are surrounded, lose their primitive 

 simplicity of manners, 'and with it the facultj of saving, on 

 which alone their prosperity depends. 



4. Implements. 



Old Scotch plough, long and heavy, and drawn by four or 

 six horses or oxen, and till about 176S, when Drs. Grieve and 

 Carlisle, clergymen, tried wheel ploughs of a lighter construc- 

 tion, which thev had seen in use in Dalkeith Park, boon 

 afterwards Small's improved plough came into notice. Ro- 

 bertson mentions that the olden race of farmers were very 

 generally their own plough-wrights, and makers of their own 

 implements of husbandry, with very little assistance from the 

 professional mechanic. These implements were indeed made 

 in a very clumsy manner, but otherwise strong and handy- 

 enough. Thev had all of them a set of Wright's tools for the 

 Eurpose. {Rural Recollections, p. 84.) The late Mr. Thomas 

 - hiells, at Grothill, near Edinburgh, made with his own hands 

 the first winnowing machine used in the Lothians, from a 

 model of one imported from Holland. {Ibid. 148.) 



5. Enclosing. 



No commons or common-fields. Hedges first planted about 

 1760. 



6. Arable Land. 



When ridges are raised high, they should not be laid south 

 and north, as the crop on the east side of such ridge is com- 

 monly found very defective. The same thing holds in the 

 county of Lancaster. 



7. Grass. 



Very little permanent grass exclusive of the hills and moor- 

 lands." Alluvial lands on the banks of streams so liable to 

 immense floods, bringing down soil, &c. that if in grass it 

 would often be much injured; considered therefore more 

 profitable to keep them in corn. There is some very pro- 

 ductive meadow land near Edinburgh, irrigated by tie water 

 w hich flows from town, carrying along with it night-soil, &_c. 

 The produce of twelve or fifteen acres of this meadow so'd in 

 IS'26 at an average of 42/. per acre ; part of it reached nearly 

 ml, the purchaser cutting and carrying it off, and incurring 

 all other charges. This, of course, is only for one summer, hut 

 it will yield four or five cuttings during that sea on, or rather 

 between the end of spring and the beginning of winter. 



8. Gardens and Orchards. 



Henry Prentice, who died about 17S6, was the first who cul- 

 tivated'white peas, potatoes, turnips, and sundry other culi- 

 nary plants, on an extensive scale, for the Edinburgh market, 

 about the year 1746. Before that period, the supply was li- 

 mited to what could be carried in baskets ; his cart being the 

 first that appeared with kitchen stuff in the streets. He even 

 raised cucumbers in the fields; but his cart-load of these met 

 with so little sale, as not to encourage a repetition. Though 

 he died a pensioner on the poor's funds of the Canongate, his 

 name deserves to be noticed with respect, not only as having 

 introduced several of our hest vegetables into cultivation, but 

 from his practice as a cultivator, which was spirited and judi- 

 cious, however little it turned out to his own account. 



Stranberries About '200 acres on the banks of the Esk, and 

 chiefly near Roslin. Crop continued on the same ground 

 without jnd; but digging down and replanting every fourth 

 year. To change every twenty or thirty years esteemed a better 

 practice. Lands in nursery 200 acres." Mawer's hothouses at 

 liilrv, and hotwalls of his' invention, figured and described. 

 The" hothouses heated by steam. Mawer was a Lancashire 

 man, and formerly gardener and steward to the Earl of Aber- 

 com. He was an excellent gardener and farmer ; a man of 

 verv general information, and highly respected. He was exten- 

 sively employed as a layer out of gardens and roads, and had 

 the general charge of the gardening and tree department on 

 some gentlemen's estates. The compiler of this Encyclopaedia 

 ■was his pupil, amanuensis, and draughtsman for the three 

 years preceding his death, which happened suddenly from 

 apoplexy in 1S00. 



P. Woods and Plantations. 



About 5000 acres so occupied, the greatest part artificial, and 

 planted since 1750. Hedgerow trees never come ti> any thing 

 ur want of shelter ; belts do no good unless twenty rows thick 

 at least. 



10. Wastes. 



None : but extensive tracts very poor. 



11. Improvements. 



Draining well understood and extensively practised. Johnston, 

 who wrote an account of E kington's mode of draining, a na- 

 tive of the county. Edinburgh and !.eith afford about I' 1 , 1 "" 1 

 cubic yards of street dung annuaily, which is commonly laid 

 on the" lands within five miles of town. Horse dung, however, 

 carried twelve miles or lurthcr. 



and thev are all' ambitious of having a time-piece, if it _ were 

 only a cuckoo clock. The whole may be worth from ten to 

 twelve pounds. The Sunday's dress of a 5™gP™C h ^ 



-_n r -. ,.«♦ n f 1....0 rioth, at five shillings ana 



ordurov breeches, white 



sixDence the \artl; veWeret vest, .... 



cot?™ stockings, calf-skin shoes with black silk shoe-knots, 

 shirt with ruffles at the breast, white muslin fringed cravat, 

 and a hat worth eight or ten shillings The foe-knots and 

 ruffles are, indeed, rather uncommon, but all the ^<*1>« an- 

 cles are ven much in use. They make a ver> good appear- 

 ance, and even pav attention to the fashion. In -heir f»>< mey 

 sriilHve in much" the same simple way as the£ ^tos* 

 Oatmeal forms the basis, or principal part of their sustena nee. 

 Thev have it regularly to breakfast and to supper, made into 

 pottage, which they eat with a small allowance of butter-milk. 

 A. Snn'er they eat it in bread, in addition to their ka e a kind 

 of soup made of barley-broth, intermixed wlth n g r « n s „? r mn '£- 

 herns. To this they add at times potatoes, and fish of ditter- 

 erd kinds ; seldom wheat bread, anA still more rarely, butcher-, 

 meat. This mode of living, in which, although with no great 

 variety there is always abundance of food, seems to be very 

 couiortnannfto the natural constitution of the people -the, 

 are found to go through their labour without tos k™ 

 selves onnressed, and enjov a state of health which is very 

 seldom ?nt£rtipted. At an average, they are not above two 



"whaf is" orated refers chiefly *«- -*"££,*£ 

 servants, who are hired by the year, and whose imnapl em 

 nlovment is al out the horses, in the held,, or on the road. 

 There is however, another class of work-people attached to a 

 SmTwho are hir'ed by the day, or by the week, and who., 

 -employment is usually in jobbing about the barns, the fences 

 - These are called labourers, and in meir 



of living there is a considerable 



or the'water furrows 



circumstances and mode 



difference between them and the others. 



Although their wages are n general at a higher rate man 

 theTredlervants, .« they make not such a good app«rance 

 n their dress, nor are so well seen to in their «*»»*,?* *» 

 Thev are generally, as we term .t,/.„m hand fa >"»»*•* " a £» 

 want; which seems to arise prtncmaUy from J&*9 «*« 

 whole wages in money from week to week, which leans tnem 

 r^rm^^^ketrproviding their ^r.««»-«S>I-£ 

 vince left generally to the charge of their wives, who, from this 

 constant" rlnning'about, get into habits of tdleness and want 

 of attention to that good housewifery which is the glory ot a 



*S2a&r£i used by the common labourers is about 

 three fourths of a ton for each person in the farm ly yearly, 1 y 

 farmers about two tons, and in families of the highest rarUE 

 abOTt six tons. The price at the pit ,s from hve -Ml ings 

 to »ven and sixpence the ton, according to its vicinity to 



E Such r was the state of things in 1795. N°» C^Oj, a - the 

 di tance of five and thirty years, they are doubtless t mjttruHj 

 altered. The use of wheaten bread is general , butch 

 much more common, and cottages more commodiou 



14 Political Economy. ,__«_«_ 



Roads so bad pretriousl, to 1714, that wheel carnages for the 

 purposes of agriculture were very little used ; even till 1 7C0 

 haTand straw carried to Edinburgh on horseback, and the 

 dung token back the same way ,n bags, pledges a good deal 

 employed in those times: they are mentioned ; m*e Uirnp ke 



butcher's meat 



actTffYr b unnoT ced in that of 1755, which shows they 

 had been' disused? a proof of the extraordinary impress of 

 improvement when once commenced, m consequence of a 

 lemand or desire for it. Forced improvement goe, on yery 

 different" Tie roads of this county are »u,^ 



ropes, and soap the chief «g»^StJS^ti£SL 



tories and works for local consumption. 

 1 r i Obstacles to Improvement. 



lfi Miscellaneous Observations 



The Farmers' Society of Dalkeith, for the prosecution of 

 thieves and encouragement of agriculture, instituted in 1,60 

 stiMetists.andha, done much good. Il is composed almort 

 en id) of practical farmer,. Small's plough, the w.nnow i.u. 



