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ICAN HERD-BOOiS^' 



DEVOTED TO 

 AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AND RURAL AND DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 



Perfect Agriculture is the true foundation of all trade and industry.— Liebio. 



Vol. YIII.— No. 9.] 



4th mo. (April) 15th, 1844. 



[Whole No. 111. 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY, 



BY JOSIAH TATUM, 



EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR, 



No. 50 North Fourth Street, 



PHILADELPHIA. 



Price one dollar per year.— Forconditions see last pajre. 



Scotch Farming in the Lothians. 



(Concluded from page 256.) 



Economy of management is shown in 

 many ways : — 



1. In the position and quality of farm 

 buildings, in having no land lying idle, or 

 unproductive, and in the use of machines 

 and horses, instead of manual labour, where- 

 ever circumstances admit of it. 



2. By confining attention to as few points 

 as possible. Thus, instead of buying stock 

 to feed off the grass, during the two years 

 the land is seeded down, it is let off to stock 

 feeders or butchers, at about 6/. per annum, 

 the acre, and the farmer's attention and 

 capital are, thereby, saved from distraction 

 and division. They contract, in like man- 

 ner, to supply turnips, or both stalls and tur- 

 nips, &c., for the winter, at so much the ton 

 for turnips, or at so much the bead, with the 

 stock-feeder; and so the stock-feeder, in his 

 turn, becomes limited to his own peculiar 

 branch of business. The dairyman, in the 



Cab.— Vol. VIII.— No. 9. 



same way, hires the fields in grass, by the 

 year, or for the summer, and contracts for 

 his turnips during winter; thus attending to 

 nothing but his cows, which, by the bye, he 

 scrupulously milks three times a day, for, at 

 least, half the year. In a similar spirit also, 

 instead of getting up his potatoes himself, 

 and with a fork, as with us, the Lothian 

 farmer sells his crop of potatoes at I4Z. to 

 201. per acre, according to the crop, or state 

 of markets, to a dealer. He then turns up 

 the potatoes zcith the plough; the dealer 

 appears with a hundred women and children, 

 and sacks and scales, and the whole crop is 

 transferred from the field to the market, or 

 shipped tor London,* in one-tenth the time, 

 and at one-tenth the expense, which would 

 be required in England. 



3. Economy in the use and keep of horses. 

 Such an abuse as three horses to a plough,\ 



* Potatoes, in the West Lothian, are grown very 

 largely, but chiefly for sale in Edinburgh, or for feeding 

 horses and cattle on their own farms. The potatoes 

 which supply the London market are grown, princi- 

 pally, in Perthshire. 



t In England, /o!tr horses are as common as three, to 

 a plough, and of course, a lad in addition to the plough- 

 man. The excuse is, " the land is stifi"," or " one is but 

 learning," or "it does not quite require four, but one 

 would have been standing doing nothing in the stable, 

 so I thought it might as well be exercising." 



My own land being extremely stiff, and having had 

 always three horses to a plough, I made searching en- 

 quiries, but could not ttnd a Scotch farmer, who would 

 admit, that land could be so stiff, as to require more 



(265) 



