NORTH DURHAM AND BERWICKSHIRE. 319 



sea-wreck. The people seem to be very lazy, at least the men, 

 and may be frequently observed to plow in their cloaks V 



It was not until towards the middle of the last century that 

 the agriculturist roused himself from this apathy, and commenced 

 those works which have rendered a noisome soil fruitful beyond 

 hope }. Plantations were made to supply the place of the natu- 

 ral woods which had disappeared, the morasses were drained of 

 their superfluous moisture, and corn grew up instead of the sedge 

 and reed. Wheat is now the staple grain ; oats and barley are 

 raised in large and nearly equal quantities ; rye is neglected, ex- 

 cept in some parts of N. Durham and about Wooler; pease, 

 beans, and tares, are grown in due proportions; the artificial 

 grasses have been introduced with eminent success ; and nowhere 

 are the turnip and potato more advantageously grown. Lint is 

 cultivated in small quantities for the use of the cottar J. There 

 is, in fact, no part of the United Kingdom where the art of farm- 

 ing is at present better understood and practised than in Ber- 

 wickshire and N. Durham, and few where it is so well ; and from 

 whatever commanding height the spectator may choose to look, 

 the Merse opens before him a rich and exhilarating prospect, 

 an extensive plain, well wooded in every part, everywhere inter- 

 sected by living hedges, and bearing on its varied and fruitful, 

 bosom all sorts of grain and herbage for man and beast. The 

 contrast between its former and present conditions is curious and 

 pleasing. We may carry the prospect back to what it was ere 

 man had become possessor of the soil, when a forest of native 

 trees covered the surface, and extended even over those heights 

 which now eschew all plants except heath and the coarsest grasses* 



* Select Remains, p. 188-9. 



t SWINTON of Swinton was the first to give an example of improvements in our 

 agriculture, about 1730. The turnip husbandry, and the cultivation of potatoes, 

 were introduced by Lord KAMES in 1746. 



4. The cabbage and carrot are very seldom grown in fields in Berwickshire. The 

 mangel-wurzel has been partially tried without success. Buckwheat is grown'only in 

 preserves for pheasants. Lucern is not cultivated except in the immediate vicinity 

 of Berwick, where I have seen two small patches by no|means in a thriving condition. 

 During the American war, and previous to the application to Scotland of the pro- 

 hibitory law by the act of 1782, tobacco was cultivated on the banks of the Tweed 

 and Tiviot with the most promising results. This act overtook the planters in the 

 midst of their labours, and compelled them to root up their plantations, and dis- 

 pose of the produce to government at a third part of its market price. Quart. 

 J#um. of Agriculture, No. vi. p. 771* 



