. No. 3. 



Agriculture in Scotland. 



87 



It is an indispensable re(]uisite in all yoiins: 

 orchard?, to keep the ground mellow and 

 loose bj' cultivation, at least for the first few 

 years, until the trees are well established. 

 Indeed of two adjoining orchards, one planted 

 and kept in grass, and the other ploughed 

 for the first five years, there will be an in- 

 credible difference in favour of the latter. 



Not only will these trees show rich, dark, 

 luxuriant foliage, and clean smooth stems, 

 while those neglected will have a starved 

 and sickly look, but the size of the trees 

 in the cultivated orchard will be treble that 

 of the others at the end of that time, and a 

 tree in one will be ready to bear an abun- 

 dant crop before the other has yielded a peck 

 of good fruit. 



Fallow crops are the best for orchards — 

 potatoes, vines, buckwheat, roots, Indian 

 corn, and the like. An occasional crop of 

 grass or grain may be taken, but clover is 

 rather too coarse rooted and exhausting for 

 a young orchard; when this or grass is 

 grown among young trees for a year or two, 

 a circle of two or three feet in diameter 

 should be kept loose by digging every sea- 

 son about the stem of each tree. 



When the least symptom of failure or 

 decay in a bearing orchard is perceived, the 

 ground should have a good top-dressing- of 

 manure, and of marl or mild lime, in alter- 

 nate years. It is folly to suppose that so 

 strong growing a tree as the apple, when 

 planted thickly in an orchard, will not after 

 a few heav}^ crops of fruit, exhaust the soil 

 of much of its proper food. If we wish our 

 trees to continue in a healthy bearing state, 

 we should manure them as regularly as any 

 other crop, and they will amply repay the 

 expense. There is scarcely a farm where 

 the waste of barn-yard manure — the urine, 

 etc., if properly economized, by mixing this 

 animal excrement with the muck heap — 

 would not be amply sufficient to keep the 

 orchard in the best condition. And how 

 many moss covered, barren orchards, fcrm- 

 erly very productive, do we every day see, 

 which only require a plentiful supply of 

 food in a substantial top-dressing, a thorough 

 scraping of the stems and washing with di- 

 luted soft soap, to bring them again into the 

 finest state of vigour and productiveness. 



The bearing year of the apple in common 

 culture, only takes place every alternate 

 year, owing to the excessive crops it usually 

 produces, by which they exhaust most of 

 the organizable matter laid up by the tree, 

 which then requires another season to re- 

 cover, and collect a sufficient supply again 

 to form fruit buds. When half the fruit is 

 thinned out in a young state, leaving only a 

 moderate crop, the apple like other fruit trees 



will bear every year, as it will also if the 

 soil is kept in high condition. The bearing 

 year of an apple tree, or a whole orchard 

 may be changed by picking off the fruit 

 when the trees first show good crops, allow- 

 ing it to remain only on the alternate sea- 

 sons which we wish to make the bearing 

 year. — Downing'' s Fruils and Fruit Trees. 



From the American Agriculturist. 

 Agriculture in Scotland. 



From Edinburgh to the Fala water, nearly 

 twenty miles, the cultivation is generally 

 good, and about Dalkeith the pasture fields 

 looked remarkably well. But even thus 

 near to the Lothians, there are here and 

 there farms which are almost unimproved, 

 whose fields show the baneful effects of in- 

 dolence or prejudice. The noble parks about 

 Dalkeith Palace and Newbattle Abbey, con- 

 tribute greatly to the beauty of this section. 

 From Blackshiels the road rises rapidly to 

 the top of Soutra Hill, one of the highest of 

 the Lammermoors. It is, I believe, about 

 1,200 feet above the level of the sea. At 

 the top is a wide, bleak, boggy tract, ten- 

 anted almost entirely by sheep, nearly all 

 black-faced. A solitary shepherd's hut and 

 ale-house rise alone in the middle, and tall 

 wooden posts by the road-side show that 

 marks are necessary during the winter 

 storms. In this high bleak region we can 

 scarcely hope to grow grain crops in regu- 

 lar rotation, even by the most approved me- 

 thods now known; but I think that by drain- 

 ing, liming, and judicious plantations to form 

 shelters on the more exposed points, the 

 pasture might be increased in value many 

 fold. 



From this place to Lauder, and indeed I 

 may say almost to Kelso, the farming gene- 

 rally is not good. The soil is formed from 

 the slates of the great clay slate formation, 

 which stretches across Scotland from St. 

 Abb's Head to the Mull of Galloway. The 

 different strata of slate differ in composition 

 greatly; but they all form improvable soils. 

 Alany, or indeed I may say all, of these soils 

 are rather stiff, naturally cold, and retentive 

 of water. Draining is progressing among 

 the farmers there, but not so fast as it 

 ought; the fields are too often thrown up in 

 ridges, with a fine crop ornamenting in a 

 narrow stripe the top, and contrasting with 

 a yellow dwarfish growth in the hollow. 

 One field struck me particularly. Half of 

 it only, the coachman told mo, had been 

 drained. The crop was turnips, sown on 

 ridges across the field, which had a gentle 

 slope. It had been raining violently dtiring 

 the night, and the water stood in pools be- 



