JUDGE DUEL'S ADDRESS. 309 



of the country, of all professions, and distributes an- 

 nually in prizes about seventeen thousand dollars. 

 In no country or district has agriculture made more 

 rapid strides in improvement than it has in Scot- 

 land since the organization of this society ; which, 

 although it may not have been the only, has most 

 assuredly been a principal, cause of this wonderful 

 and salutary change. Up to 1792, the agriculture 

 of Scotland, to adopt the language of the Edinburgh 

 Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, was " wretched ; 

 execrably bad in all its localities ! Hardly any 

 wheat was attempted to be grown ; oats full of this- 

 tles was the standard crop, and this was repeated on 

 the greater part of the arable land, while it would 

 produce twice the seed thrown into it; turnips, as 

 part of the rotation of crops, was unknown ; few po- 

 tatoes were raised, and no grass-seeds or clover 

 were sown. A great part of the summer was em- 

 ployed, in the now fertile shire of Fife, in pulling 

 thistles out of the oats and bringing them home for 

 the horses, or mowing the rushes or other aquatic 

 plants that, grew on the bogs around the home- 

 stead." But a change soon came over the land. 

 The seed which had been sown by the Highland So- 

 ciety had germinated, and its luxuriant foliage al- 

 ready covered the soil. In 1815, according to the 

 authority I am quoting, " beautiful fields of wheat 

 were to be seen; drilled green crops everywhere 

 abounded ; the bogs had disappeared ; the thistles 

 no longer existed ;" naked fallows were abolished ; 

 draining was extensively introduced ; wet lands 

 were made dry ; poor, weeping clays were convert- 

 ed into turnip soils ; and " whole parishes were com- 

 pletely transformed from unsightly marshes inl > 

 beautiful and rich wheat-fields ; and where the plough 

 could scarcely be driven for slush and water, were 

 heavy crops per acre and heavy weight per bush- 

 el."* The improvements in Scottish husbandry 



* Quarterly Journal of Agriculture for June, 1839, p. 70. 



