No. 8. 



Scotch Farming in the Lothians. 



255 



explanation given is equally remarkable, 

 viz., that every man on the farm has know- 

 ledge enough for the situation of greeve, 

 but every man has not the qualifications, 

 which fit him for the management of other 

 vien, or, perhaps, is not sufficiently trust- 

 worthy for so responsible a situation. That 

 the requisite knowledge for conducting a 

 farm of 500 acres, may be had for 12s. a 

 week — the wages of a ploughman, — and 

 that Is. extra, will command the extra quali- 

 fications for a bailiff, speak eloquently wh'it 

 education has done for the peasantry of this 

 part of Scotland. I found the greeves, uni- 

 versally, clever, acute, and sensible; and 

 their minds open to what was passing in the 

 world, beyond the limits of their own farm, 

 or immediate neighbourhood. 



The farmer's dwelling house is, generally, 

 a little in front of the farm buildings, a neat, 

 comfortable house, with kitchen and flower 

 garden attached. 



The farmers, themselves, are men of su- 

 perior education, manners, and style of liv- 

 ing, to the, possibly, equally wealthy ones 

 of the farming counties of England, even 

 Lincolnshire and Norfolk, where the farms 

 are of equal, or greater extent than those of 

 the Lothians. As a class, however, ihey 

 would compare better with the master manu- 

 facturers of Lancashire, so keen and push- 

 ing. Few of them are without a handsome 

 pheton, for the use of the female members 

 of their family; they are of most hospitable 

 habits ; and I was informed, that, excepting 

 for a month at seed-time, and the same at 

 harvest, they have company at home, or 

 dine out, two or three times a week. 



One feature throughout the Lothian farms 

 may be remarked — a great uniformity in 

 the quality of the crops. Not, as elsewhere, 

 here, a good farmer, and there, a bad one : 

 here, a failing crop, there, a middling one; 

 and here again, a fine one ; but, nearly all 

 the same, showing that farming is there re- 

 duced to a science, leaving nothing uncer- 

 tain but the seasons, which, affecting all 

 nearly alike, do not materially disturb the 

 uniformity I speak of. 



The present season has been remarkably 

 favourable in the Lothians, as a whole, 

 though somewhat too dry. The wheat 

 would average about five quarters* to the 

 acre ; and, in the seventy or eighty acres 

 on the same farm, it would sometimes be 

 difficult to point out a square yard which 

 carried more, or fewer ears than the rest of 

 the field. 



The farms are divided into fields of 20 to 

 50 acres each; the hedges are dipt low and 



* A quarter is eight bushels.— Ed. Cab. 



thin, and the ditches covered in, so as to oc- 

 cupy as little space as possible. There are 

 no trees in the hedge-rows, and few fur- 

 rows, the land being laid down fat ;f and 

 thus, between one thing and another, the 

 entire area of the farm is made productive, 

 and the expense of fences and gates is re- 

 duced to a minimum. 



Another thing worth noting is, that per- 

 manent grass, either as meadow, or pasture, 

 is unknown, or nearly so; the only hay, or 

 pasture, is derived from artificial grass, 

 sown in the regular rotation of crop, which 

 remains two years down, and is then plough- 

 ed up and followed by oats. The crops of 

 artificial grass were extremely heavy. I 

 counted, in one field of sixteen acres, no 

 less than 234 sheep, from 150 to 200 of 

 which, had been on the land since the first 

 of April. In another field of the same size, 

 20 cows; and in both, the feed, chiefly 

 white clover, was abundant, and of the 

 finest quality. 



The rent of the Lothian farms is from 21. 

 10s. to 71. per acre ;| and these high rents, 



t Evidence of Mr. Smith of Deanston. — "The 

 drains are placed in the same direction that the fur- 

 rows were before ; but I have iio furrows. I lay all my 

 fields down without any furrows. I object to furrows, 

 because water is allowed to collect in a body, and 

 thereby ruins the soil." "Yes, they (the drains) answer 

 the purpose of furrows." 



•J These rents have been objected to, as exaggerated, 

 and it is said, that I ought to have given, more pre- 

 cisely, the rents current at different distances from 

 Edinburgh. When the distance from Edinburgh is too 

 great to benefit from the town manure, and daily ac- 

 cess to that market, the rent of land experiences a 

 somewhat sudden fall from 6/. and 71. to 41, 21. 10s. 

 and 3^. per acre. In the West Lothian, the first named 

 rents seem to be current within 3 miles, and the latter 

 w ilhiri 7 and 8 from Edinburgh. The quality of the land 

 rich and light. The land in East Lothian, at twenty 

 miles distance from Edinburgh, is of a worse quality, 

 part of it stiff in its nature, and has only partially 

 gone through its course of furrow draining. The rents 

 there are lower, and vary again according to the pro- 

 portion of the farm which may have been drained, as 

 also, whether the whole expense of it, costing from £4 

 to £8 per acre, has been thrown upon the tenant, or 

 been partly borne by the landlord. A tenant will, of 

 course, not pay the same rent, when he has to lay out 

 2000;. in improvements, as he would have paid, had 

 this expense been incurred by the out-going tenant, or 

 had to be done at the expense of the landlord. On farm, 

 No. 8, at twenty miles from Edinburgh, stiff land on 

 which turnips had never before been grown, the tenant 

 furrow-draining (but if at his own expense wholly, or 

 in part, I do not know) the rent I understood to be 47s. 

 per acre. 



It was not the intention of my letter, as I stated be- 

 fore, to enter into minutiae of any kind, but merely to 

 call attention to a few striking points connected witls 

 the Lothian farming. 



