94 SCOTLAND AT THE MIDDLE OF LAST CENTURY. PART VII. 



an incredibly backward state, compared with either 

 England or even Ireland, at the time when our en- 

 gineer was born. 



The traveller through the Lothians which now ex- 

 hibit perhaps the finest agriculture in the world, where 

 every inch of ground is turned to profitable account, 

 and the fields are cultivated to the very hedge-roots 

 will scarcely believe that less than a century ago these 

 districts were not much removed from the state in which 

 nature had left them. In the interior there was little 

 to be seen but bleak moors and quaking bogs. The 

 chief part of each farm consisted of " out-field " or un- 

 enclosed land, no better than moorland, from which 

 even the hardy black cattle could scarcely gather herbage 

 enough to keep them from starving in winter time. The 

 " in-field " was an enclosed patch of ill-cultivated ground, 

 on which oats and " bear" or barley were grown ; but the 

 principal crop was weeds. 



Of the small quantity of corn raised in the country 

 nine-tenths were grown within five miles of the coast ;* 

 and of wheat very little was raised not a blade north 

 of the Lothians. When the first crop of that grain was 

 to be seen on a field near Edinburgh, people flocked to 

 look upon it as a wonder. Clover, turnips, and potatoes 

 had not yet been introduced, and no cattle were fat- 

 tened : it was with difficulty they could be kept alive. 

 Mr. Eennie, the engineer's father, was one of the first to 

 introduce turnips as a regular farmer's crop. All loads 

 were as yet carried on horseback ; but where the farm 

 was too small, or the crofter too poor, to keep a horse, 

 his own or his wife's back bore the load. The horse 

 brought peats from the bog and coals from the pit, and 

 carried the crops to market. Sacks filled with manure 

 were also sent a-field on horseback ; but the uses of 

 manure were so little understood, that if a stream was 



Professor Forbes'a ' Considerations on the Present State of Scotland,' p. 14. 



