Book I. 



AGRICULTURE OF BERWICKSHIRE. 



1181 



thing, with respect to them, which merits particular notice. 

 A small proportion of farm servants, however, belong to this 

 class ; married servants are uniformly preferred ; those who 

 reside in their master's house are, in many cases, not employed 

 in regular labour, hut peiform that sort of extra work, and 

 kind of household drudgery, which requires some hands on 

 every considerable farm. 



The far greater part of the regular labour is performed by 

 married servants, called hinds; a class more numerous here 

 than in other districts. These dwell in houses provided by 

 their masters, and receive their wages wholly or chietly in 

 kind ; the circumstances are so comfortable under which they 

 aie generally placed, as to secure a full supply of such servants 

 at all times. They are more steady generally than \ oung men : 

 their families, and the property which they have acquired, give 

 them a sort of interest in t:.e.r situations, and afford some se- 

 curity for their continuing longer in their places. 



The hind occupies a house provided by his master, for which 

 his wife works in harvest ; he has a cow kept ail the year 

 round, generally ten bolls of oats, three bolls of barley, two bolls 

 of peas, all of the best quality upon the farm, seed-corn ex- 

 cepted. He has likewise a peck of fiax-seed sown, and about 

 the sixteenth part of an acre of ground, well prepared, and 

 sufficiently dunged for planting potatoes ; his fuel is carried ; 

 he has his victuals during harvest, which is always four weeks, 

 sometimes six ; and when he carries com to market, he has an 

 allowance, provincially called mags. Those who are employed 

 in sowing and building the corn-ricks have, besides the ordi- 

 nary wages, a pair of shoes and half a boll of wheat* On all 

 well -managed farms, the labour is carried on regularly at set 

 hours : and though it is not understood that servants, who work 

 horses, are absolutely exempt from extra work, yet they are 

 very seldom required to do any thing of this nature. 



It is evident, that the value of hinds' wages, in money, can- 

 not be accurately stated ; that must vary according to the mar- 

 ket price of the articles in which he is paid. On an average of 

 some years past, it could not be less than 251. sterling per an- 

 num : now from 30/. to 551. 



The circumstance which deserves particular attention with 

 regard to this class, and which renders their condition so much 

 more comfortable than that of the labourers in many other 

 places, is the receiving payment of their wages in the neces- 

 saries of life. They are far more comfortable than those who 

 receive the same rate of wages in money, any where ; they are 

 generally more faithful to their employers, and infinitely more 

 attentive to the interests of their families. They have all the 

 necessary articles of food continually at hand, and seldom need 

 to purchase any thing considerable, except shoes. Their wives 

 make linen from their own tlax sufficient for their families, 

 and often cloth, for other articles of dress. The quantity of 

 com which they can afford to sell, with the surplus produce 

 of their cows and hens, brings them as much money as fully 

 answers every demand, and enables them to give a better edu- 

 cation to their children than is sometimes obtained by per- 

 sons, considerably above their condition, in some other parts 

 of the island. There are few of this class in East Lothian who 

 cannot read, most of them can write; none of them fail to 

 have their children instructed in these necessary branches of 

 education, including the rules of arithmetic- One sees, about 

 every tai rc-house, a number of children, vigorous and healthy, 



decently clothed, and exhibiting even- appearance of being well 

 fed. Not an instance occurs of any of these people soliciting 

 relief from the public, unless they are by some accident dis- 

 abled from future labour, or overtaken Bv the infirmities of 

 age. Indeed the times which are hardest for the lower classes, 

 in general, are usually favourable for them ; because the com 

 and other articles which thev have to sell bear a better price, 

 while what they have to purchase is not so much affected. 



The cottage system, which found many advocates some time 

 ago, was inferior in every view of the matter to the manner in 

 which labourers inagriculture are accommodated here. .Many 

 of those who laboured to introduce the new cottage system, de- 

 served all praise for the purity of their motives: every friend 

 of humanity will honour iht-m for the generous interest which 

 thev felt in behalf of the labouring poor ; but if they had un- 

 derstood the condition of the hinds in this county, they would 

 have found out a much better plan for accomplishing their 

 object, than giving to every cottager land to produce his sub- 

 sistence. A hind here receives as much com as such a cot- 

 tager might be expected to raise : his labour is not interrupted 

 to his employer, nor himself worn out by extra and excessive 

 labour; he has no care upon his mind, no rent to pay, no bad 

 seasons to dread ; for whatever may be his master's crop, he is 

 *uu- of his full share. If the labourer profit by this system, 

 the employer and the public profit still more: the employer 

 does not pay a man who wastes half his strength at other work, 

 nor relv on a servant who may sometimes disappoint him, by 

 attending to other concerns. The public must gain in the 

 increased quantity of human food produced ; for, without doubt, 

 an acre of land occupied by a cottager will not yield as much, 

 at as little expense, as if it made part of a farm cultivated by a 

 person with sufficient capital. 



Were all the farm servants over the kingdom paid in kind, 

 it may be safely affirmed, from the experience of the places 

 where this practice prevails, that the advantage would be great 

 to themselves and to the public. The master might probably, 

 in some case, find it more convenient to give money, but he is 

 far more than recompensed for any trilling disadvantage at- 

 tending the other mode, by the valuable moral habits which it 

 is calculated to preserve. Every mister, who properly under- 

 stands his interest, wii! admit, that he had better pay sober, 

 honest, and industrious servants, than have those of a different 

 description almost for nothing. From their being accustomed to 

 have little money pass through their hands, many of the farmers' 

 servants in this county acquire such habits of saving, that they 

 lay up a few pounds for old age, or to meet any contingency 

 which may require more than their ordinary income. 

 10. Political Economy. 



The first turnpike bill for Scot'and was obtained Tor this 

 county in 1750. '1 he main roads are on the whole good ; but the 

 bye-roads still admit of much improvement. The commerce 

 is chietly in grain from North Berw ick and Dunbar. There are 

 o>ster and other fisheries on the coa-t ; and starch-works, dis 

 tilleries, and breweries, but no manufactures deserving notice. 

 The agricultural society of Edinburgh, the earliest > n the United 

 Kingdom, was founded chietly by gentlemen of this rounty, 

 and especially Cockburn of Ormiston. There are now two 

 county hocieties; one, that meets at Haddington, and another 

 at Salton. They give prizes annually for the beat cattle, &c. 

 and seem to be in a flourishing condition. 



7835. BERWICKSHIRE. 285,440 acres {Edin. Gaz. abridged, 1S29.\ chiefly of gently varied surface, 

 but partly of hilly and mountainous pasture. The soil, in the cultivatable part of the county, is chiefly 

 clay ; the mountainous part, which occupies fully one third of it, is a continuation of the Lammermuir 

 hills. Climate of the higher parts comparatively dry, but cold and late ; of the lower parts, which stretch 

 down to the Tweed, comparatively warm and early. There are no metals or coal in the county ; very 

 little lime, but some stone quarries of the trap, and other coarse stones. Every one knows that this 

 county is one of the best cultivated and most systematically managed in the island, and that its pro- 

 ducts are nearly equally stock and corn. It is the county of Lord Kaimes, one of the greatest patriots 

 and best agricultural authors, and the first to propose a board of agriculture. It is also that of Small, 

 well known as the improver of the plough. (Kerr's Berwickshire, 1808.) 



1. Property. 



No very large estates ; largest from S00O/. to 10,000/. a year. 

 Many of the owners reside on their estates ; some farmers have 

 of late years become respectable proprietors. Resident propri- 

 etors usually draw their own rents ; and those who live at a 

 distance employ an agent, or, if only temporarily absent, have 

 it sent in a bank bill. Proprietors and tenants live in harmony 

 and mutual good will, the rents of the former progressively ad- 

 vancing with the improvements of the country, and the for- 

 tunes of the latter augmenting continually, by industrious and 

 judicious attention to improved agricultural practices, and to 

 the amelioration of live stock. 



2. Buildings. 



Farm-houses formerly of rough stone, clay, and thatch, now 

 jrreatly superior to the houses that were occupied by the mid- 

 dling gentry, forty or fifty years ago. An excellent plan of a 

 farmery given; but the cottages of the hinds appear uncom- 

 fortably small, and are calculated for close -panne led beds, 

 which," wherever health and cleanliness are objects, ought to 

 \*e discarded. These cottages contain only one apartment, and 

 a sort of dark lumber place, formed by the position of the pan- 

 neled beds. We much wonder that the reporter, who talks so 

 much of the commodiousness of the houses of farmers, should 

 not have displayed a little more feeling on the subject of the 

 accommodations of cottagers. These remarks apply more par- 

 ticularly to three plans of cottages, given in Kerr's Reporr, 

 Dec. 14, 1S30, in the general plan of a farmerv. (PI. facing 

 p. 97.) A detached plan of a cottage ( fig. 1125.) is given, 

 rather better arranged than these double ones, but still, in our 

 opinion, highly objectionable. It has two windows, whereas 

 the others have only one each. The larger window is in the 

 kitchen la), the smaller in the back place (l>) ; these are separated 

 by two beds (c) ; in the kitchen are shown a plate-rack and 

 dresser (J), table (e), and two chests {//). In the lobby a place 

 for coals [g). No water-closets in any of the plans. 



3. Occupation. 



Farms generally large, and held on lease for different periods, 

 from ten to thirty years, but commonly for nineteen vears. 

 Mode of culture aration and pasturage alternately. " Under 

 this system of alternation, judiciously conducted, "it mav con- 

 fidently be asserted that a farm of 1000 acres will raise as 



much grain as one of equal size entirely under perpetual 

 tillage, and will produce in addition as much beef, and mut- 

 ton, and wool, as a separate farm of 200 or 300 acres under 



1125 



permanent grass. If this estimation be well founded, of which 

 the reporter has no doubt, this alternate system is obviously 

 of superior profit to the tenancy in the first place, to the 

 landed interest secondarily, by increased rents, and lo the 

 public ulUmateW and always, in the proportion of at least 



