1182 



STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part IV. 



twenty-five per cent beyond what can be produced from the 

 two branches separately pursued on tlie same extent of equal 

 land. 



In the hill district, the lands are mostly occupied as breed- 

 ing sheep farms ; taking advantage of all the favourable pieces 

 of land, susceptible of cultivation, for raising a little grain to 

 supply the farmer's family, servants, and horses; to afford 

 littei- and fodder from the straw during winter, by which dung 

 is produced ; to apply that dung to raise turnips, to carry on 

 their sheei> stock during winter , and, finally, to produce crops 

 of artificial or sown grasses, for hay and early pastures, and to 

 the great amelioration of permanent grass lands. 



In the neighbourhood of towns and villages, various small 

 possessions, from two or three acres or less, to twenty or more, 

 are let on leases of various endurance, but mostly for short 

 periods to villagers who keep one or two horses, which they 

 chiefly occupy in If Iding materials for road makers, coals to 

 the other villagers, lime, or any such employment as may occur. 

 The great mass of the land throughout the county is let in 

 farms of every variety of size, from 40 to 50 acres, up to 1000 

 or more, to tenants on leases of fixed endurance, mostly for 

 nineteen years. 



The character of farmers in a large district of country must 

 be various ; but those of Berwieksiiire ai very generally mobt 

 respectable and inf.ligent, and their success has been de- 

 servedly proportional. They have almost universally risen 

 completely above the ojierative class in knowledge, education, 

 and manners, assimilating in every respect to the character of 

 country gentlemen. In every comer of the county they are 

 to be seen carrying on extensive and costly improvements, by 

 draining, enclosing, liming, and marling ; and by careful and 

 judicious improvements of their live stock, sheep, cattle, and 

 even horses, with all the eagerness an.d intelligence of com- 

 mercial speculators. They trust to the certain profits of future 

 years to reimburse their large expenditures with reasonable 

 profit, which they are enabled to do through the sufficiency of 

 their capitals, and the security of their lyases. The former is 

 derived from their own successful and intelligent industry, or 

 that of their fathers; the latter from the good sense of the 

 landlords, in seeing their own interests most materially inter- 

 woven in the security and success of their tenants. 



4. Implements. 



No waggons or wheel ploughs, and, though drilling turnips 

 is universal, on'y one or two sorts of drills in use. Few imple- 

 ments, and those of a simple construction, suffice for the best 

 practicians in every art. 



.5. Enclosing. 



The cultivatable lands are universally enclosed, and subdi- 

 vided into regular fields, generally by hedges ; but sometimes 

 by stone walls. In the mountain district, the farms are neither 

 enclosed nor subdivided. The boundaries of each farm are 

 indicated by landmarks, and round each farmery there are 

 generally two or three small fields for convenience or cultiva- 

 tion. Trees very generally planted in hedge-rows; hedges al- 

 ways cut with a bill in the wedge shape ; never clipped and 

 rounded, or broader at top than bottom ; the sure means of 

 hindering the production of side shoots, and in time producing 

 naked places and gaps in that part of tiie hedge. 



6. Arable Land. 



Ample details of the turnip culttire in drills is given. 



7. Orchards. Woods. 



None of the former worth notice. Some native copses and 

 woods, and artificial plantations, but not much woodiness, ex- 

 cep ing round gentlemen's seats. 



8. Im^provements. 



In this county were begun about 1730, when Swinton of 

 SwJaton drained, marled, and completely enclosed his whole 



estate. Nearly about the same time, Hume of Eccles effected 

 similar improvements. Both of these gentlemen were aetuateil 

 bv the example and acquamtance of Cockburn, of Ormiston. 

 Henry Home, Lord Kaimes, was one of the early improvers 

 of this county about 1746, at Kaimes, now Besborough. About 

 1730, the ardour of enclosing and improving the land spread 

 generally among the Berwickshire proprietors. 



Paring and burning, irrigation and embanking, not practised 

 or required. 



9. Live Stock. 



The cattle of Berwickshire are so much mixed by crossing, 

 as scarcely to admit of any particular description. Upon the 

 whole, they are short homed, thin hided, and kindly feeders, 

 and have been much improved by crosses with bulls of the 

 Teeswater breed, which is the kind chiefly admired in this 

 district. GeneraQy speaking the oxen are not carried on to 

 any age, and they are never worked. They are well fed from 

 their youth up, and are generally fed off for market in their 

 fourth year, very few reaching five years old, Cows, on the 

 contrary, are generally old before they are fed off. Great 

 numbers of smaller cattle are bred upon the lower hills, and 

 are disposed of to graziers in the low country for feeding, 

 either on gr;'ss or turnips, or by a succession of both ; and 

 many Higtiland cattle of various descriptions are bought in 

 yearly for consuming straw, or for feeding on tmiiips during 



winter, and on grass in spring and ! 



The sheep bred in Berwickshire are of several kinds. In the 

 most exposed of the Lammermuir and Lauderdale hills, the 

 flocks are mostly of the black faced, or Tweeddale kind, and 

 are there exclusively kept for breeding. In the cultivated 

 tract the new I^icester breed, in a great variety of degrees of 

 perfection, now universally prevails ; and it is believed that no 

 other known breed, in the peculiar circumstances of this 

 county, could be so profitable to the farmer. They require, 

 however, always to nave abundance of food, and easily pro- 

 cured ; for, being short-legged, heavy-bodied, and carrying 

 a great weight of wool, they are unable to undergo much 

 fatigue or hardship, and do not thrive unless plentifully sup- 

 plied at all seasons. This supply the agricultural system of 

 the district amply affords, and is indeed admirably calculated 

 for providing. On some of the best interior hills, and uiion the 

 higher exterior lands, verging on Lammermuir and Lauderdale, 

 called the moor-edges, the Cheviot breed, or long sheep, are 

 kept. An intermediate breed between the Cheviot and Lei- 

 cester, usually called half-bred sheep, is vevy prevalent upon 

 the best of these situations. As a singidar circuiiistance, the 

 reporter records the case of a ewe of this county, which pro- 

 duced eleven lambs in three succeeding seasons. 



Horses, as in East Lothian, brought from the west of Scot- 

 land. 



10. Bural Economy. 



Farm servants managed as in East Lothian, and, indeed, 

 almost every where in the low country of Scotland. 



11. Political Economy. 



Commerce chiefly grain, wool, and salmon ; scarcely any 

 manufactures, excepting the paper-mills. The salmon fishery, 

 including Berwick bounds and the English side of the river, 

 employs about seventy small boats, and nearly 300 fishermen- 

 All their fish are sold to a very respectable fraternity of traders 

 in Berwick, named coopers, from their former business of mak- 

 ing kits, and boiling the fish, whifrh is now entirely discon- 

 tinued. By them the salmon are packed in ice, and sent to 

 London, to be disposed of by factors on commission. This em- 

 ployment of ice was first essayed by IVIessrs. Kichardson, of 

 Perth, on the suggestion of George Dempster, of Dunnichen, 

 Esq. who had accidentally read that such a practice was not 

 unusual in China. 



7836. ROXBURGHSHIRE or TEVIOTDALE contains 448,000 acres, of which about three fifths are 

 in sheep pasture, and the remaining two fifths, are occasionally under the plough, except about 8000 acres 

 occupied in woods, pleasure-groiuids, and the sites of towns and villages. The surface is exceedingly 

 irregular, being in some places ninety, and in others 2000 feet above the level of the sea. The climate 

 is equally various, and excessive rain's, winds, frosts, and even hail and snow are by no means uncommon 

 in spring and harvest. There is a good deal of moss and peat soil in detached portions over the county ; 

 but the general character of the district is, that the low or arable part consists chiefly of a light or turnip 

 soil, and the hilly division of dry green pastures. There is a good deal of high, wet, barren land ; but this 

 is by no means the character of the county at large. Limestone abounds in most parts of the district, and 

 coal has been found, but is not worked. The agriculture of the arable lands is in all respects the same as 

 that of Berwickshire, and that of the pastures resembles the store farming of the latter county and East 

 Lothian. Dawson, of Frogden, belongs to this county, and may be looked on as one of the greatest im- 

 provers of British agriculture. {Douglas's Roxburghshire, 1794. Edin. Gax. abridged, 1829.) 



1. Property. 



Generally in large estates, and little change of proprietorship 

 has taken place for many years. The largest between 25,000/. 

 and 55,000/. a year. 



2. hnplements. Arable Land. 



Fanners, the reporter states, were first made in this county 

 by one Rogers, a farmer, of a mechanical turn, near Hawick, 

 in 17.33, or at least before 1737, who is said either to have seen 

 a model, or a description of one, which had been brought from 

 Holland. [Report of North m.) Robertson states {Rural Recol- 

 lections, p. 147.) that he himself conversed with an old farmer, 

 the late Mr. Thomas Shiells, at Grothill near Edinburgh, who 

 with his own bands made the first winnowing machine in 

 the Lothians, from a model of one imported from Holland." 



Arable land enclosed, partly by hedges and partly by walls of 

 loose stones, without mortar. 



Ploughing with two horses, without a driver, was practised 

 in this county before it was in any other. It was taught by 

 Dawson, of Frogden, who intro<iuced the drill culture, to 

 James Macdougal, farmer, at Linton, in Tweeddale, alive at the 

 fimeof making up Douglas's report: it spread rapidly afterwards 

 through the county, and the neighbouring ones of Northum- 

 berland, Berwickshire, East Lothian, and Tweeddale. Potatoes 

 first planted in large beds about 1754 ; in 1768, in drills in the 

 fields. Tobacco, during the American war, was cultivated to 

 a considerable extent in the neighbourhood of Kelso and Jed- 

 burgh, and in some other spots. Its produce was so g; eat, that 

 thirteen acres at Crailina fetched 104/. at the low rate of four- 

 pence per pound and would have brought more than tliree 



times as much, had not an Act of Parliament obliged the ctil- 

 tivator to disi)ose of it to Government at that price. This 

 county lost about 1500/. sterling by that Act, which passed 

 while the tobacco was growing; yet it excited not so much 

 murmuring and clamour among the sufierers as have been 

 elsewhere repeatedly raised, with less reason, against other 

 Acts in no respect so arbitrary and oppressive. 



3. Gardens aiid Orchards, 



Thrive better in the lower parts of this county than in those 

 on the east coast. At IMelrose, Jedburgh, and Kelso, are the 

 remains of orchards planted by the priests several centuries ago, 

 the pear-trees of which are very productive. Wonderful 

 stories are told of their fertility. A single tree of the Thorle 

 pear at Melrose has for these fifty years past yielded the interest 

 of the money paid for the garden where it stands, and for a 

 house let for seven pounds sterling vearly. Another tree there 

 has carried fruit to the amount of three pounds annually, at 

 an average for the same period. In the year 1793, two trees 

 there brought to perfection about 60,000 pears, which were 

 sold for eight guineas. These facts are well authenticated. 

 There are also several more recent orchards near the same 

 places, and 120 acres of nurseries- Of these one of the oldest 

 and largest in Scotland is that of Messrs. Dicksons, of Hawick. 



4. Woods and Plantations. 



To the extent of 5290 acres ; nearly two thirds artificial. 

 r>. Live Stock. 



Cattle, a mixed breed, as in Berwickshire. Sheep of the. 

 Cheviot kind said to be greatlv improved by a cross with the 



