130 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. Part I. 



800. The progress of the taste for agriculture in Britain is shown by the great number 

 of societies that have been lately formed ; one or more in almost every county, for the 

 diffusion of knowledge, and the encouragement of correct operations and beneficial dis- 

 coveries. Among these, the Bath and fVest of England Society, established in 1777, and the 

 Highland Society of Scotland, in 1784, hold the first rank. The establishment of the Board 

 of Agriculture, in 1793, ought to have formed a new era in the history of the agriculture 

 and rural economy of Britain ; but it effected little beyond the publication of the County 

 Agricultural Surveys, and, to a certain extent, rendering the art fashionable among the 

 higher classes. 



Sect. III. Of the Literature of British Agriculture from the Revolution to the 



jyresent Time. 



801. The literature of English agriculture from the revolution is rich in excellent works. 

 We have already, in detailing the professional improvements, noticed the writings of 

 Mortimer and Tull. To these we now add the numerous works of Bradley, which 

 appeared from 1717 to his death in 1732. They are all compilations, but have been of 

 very considerable service in spreading a knowledge of culture, and a taste for rural 

 improvement. Stephen Switzer, a seedsman in London, in 1729 ; Dr. Blackwell, in 1741 ; 

 and Hitt, a few years afterwards, published tracts recommending the burning of clay as 

 manure, in the manner recently done by Governor Beatson, of Suffolk; Craig, of Cally 

 in Kircudbrightshire, and some others. Lisle's useful Observations on Husbandry were 

 published in 1757 ; Stillingfleet's Tracts, in which he shows the importance of a selection 

 of grasses for laying down lands, in 1759 ; and the excellent Essays of Harte, canon of 

 Windsor, in 1764. The celebrated Arthur Young's first publication on agriculture, 

 entitled, The Farmer's Letters to the People of England, &c., appeared in 1767; and 

 was followed by a great variety of excellent works, including the Tour in France, and 

 the Annals of Agriculture, till his pamphlet on the utility of the Board of Agriculture, in 

 1810. Marshall's numerous and most superior agricultural works commenced wdth his 

 Minutes of Agriculture, published in 1787, and ended with his Review of the Agricultural 

 Reports, in 1816. Dr. R. W. Dickson's Practical Agriculture appeared in two quarto 

 volumes, in 1 806, and may be considered as giving a complete view of the present state 

 of agriculture at the time. The last general work we shall mention is the Code of Agri- 

 culture, by Sir John Sinclair, which may be considered as a comprehensive epitome of 

 the art of farming. It has already been translated into several foreign languages, and 

 passed through more than one edition in this country. In this sketch a great number of 

 useful and ingenious authors are necessarily omitted ; but they will all be found in their 

 places in the Literature of British Agnculture, given in the Fourth Part of this work. 



802. The Scottish writers on agriculture confirm our view of the low state of the art 

 in that country in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The first work, written by 

 James Donaldson, was printed in 1697, under the title of Husbandry Anatomised; or, 

 an Enquiry into the present Manner of Teiling and Manuring the Ground in Scotland. 

 It appears from this treatise that the state of the art was not more advanced at that time 

 in North Britain, than it had been in England in the time of Fitzherbert. Farms were 

 divided into infield and outfield ; corn crops followed one another, without the interven- 

 tion of fallow, cultivated herbage, or turnips, though something is said about fallowing 

 the outfield ; enclosures were very rare ; the tenantry had not begun to emerge from a 

 state of great poverty and depression ; and the wages of labour, compared with the price 

 of corn, were much lower than at present ; " though that price, at least in ordinary years, 

 must appear extremely moderate in our times. Leases for a term of years, however, 

 were not uncommon ; but the want of capital rendered it impossible for the tenantry to 

 attempt any spirited improvements. 



803. The Countryman's Rudiments ; or, an Advice to the Farmers in East Lothian how to labour and 

 improve their Grounds, said to have been written by Lord Belhaven, about the time of the union, and 

 reprinted in 1723, is the next work on the husbandry of Scotland. In this we have a deplorable picture 

 of the state of agriculture, in what is now the most highly improved county in Scotland. His Lordship 

 begins with a very high encomium on his own performance. " I dare be bold to say, there never was 

 such a good, easy method of husbandry as this, so succinct, extensive, and methodical in all its parts, 

 published before." And he bespeaks the favour of those to whom he addresses himself, by adding, 

 " neither shall I affright you with hedging, ditching, marling, chalking, paring and burning, draining, 

 watering, and such like, which are all very good improvements indeed, and very agreeable with the soil 

 and situation of East Lothian ; but I know ye cannot bear as yet such a crowd of improvements, this 

 being only intended to initiate you in the true method and principles of husbandry." The farm lands 

 in East Lothian, as in other districts, were divided into infield and outfield, the former of which got all 

 the dung. " The infield, where wheat is sown, is generally divided by the tenant into four divisions or 

 breaks, as they call them, viz. one of wheat, one of barley, one of peas, and one of oats ; so that the 

 wheat is sowed after the peas, the barley after the wheat, and the oats after the barley. The outfield 

 land is ordinarily made use of promiscuously for feeding their cows, horses, sheep, and oxen : it is also 

 dunged by their sheep, who lay in earthen folds ; and sometimes, when they have much of it, they fauch 

 or fallow part of it yearly." Under this management, the produce seems to have been three times the 

 seed ; " and yet," says His Lordship, " if in P^ast Lothian they did not leave a higher stubble than in 

 other places of the kingdom, their grounds would be in a much worse condition than at present they 

 are, though bad enough. A good crop of corn makes a good stubble, and a good stubble is the equallest 



