30 ALEXANDER WIIvSON: POET-NATURAUST 



from the closing year of the Seven Years' War in 

 Europe, 1763, for with peace came the opportunity 

 for the ripening of the real fruits of the Act of 

 Union. The introduction of plows from the South, 

 and the publication of Kames' Gentleman Farmer, 

 lyyy,'^ began a new era in agriculture. A writerf in 

 1782 says, "The land which used then to let in tack, 

 at five, six or seven shillings per acre, will set or let 

 in tack, at twenty shillings per acre at present. 

 About that period, viz, 1755, there was scarce a 

 farm, I knew, that had any enclosures about them, 

 except about their gardens, or what gentlemen kept 

 within their own possessions. * * * g^^ from 

 the year 1763 to the year 1773, the noblemen and 

 gentlemen raised a spirit of improvement upon their 

 estates, and at the expiration of their tenants' tacks 

 they raised their rents, some double, others near 

 triple of the preceding rents, and bound their ten- 

 ants to enclose the whole of their farms with 

 hedges and ditches, or stone dykes, as was most con- 

 venient for them; and to plow their grounds so 

 many years, generally two, and then let lie in pas- 

 turage four years; by which means the ground is 

 always kept in strength." "Since the year 1700," 

 the same writer says, "Scotland has made more im- 

 provement in agriculture, mechanics, literature, 

 than in any three centuries before." 



The wonderful growth in shipbuilding, in the 

 fisheries, in manufactories, and in commerce may 

 all be traced most convincingly, certainly in part at 



* Mention should also be made of Donaldson's "Husbandry Anatom- 

 ized," 1697. 



t "The History of the Shire of Renfrew" by George Crawford and 

 William Semple, p. g. Paisley: Alex Weir, 1782. 



