CHAP. 



RENNIE'S MASTER ANDREW METKLE. 



107 



HOUSTON MILL. 

 [By E. M. Wimperis. after a Drawing by J. S. Smiles.] 



wright's shop, where he carried on his small business 

 in connection with mill-work the demands of the district 

 being as yet of an extremely limited character. But 

 the march of social improvement had by this time 

 fairly begun in East Lothian. The public spirit dis- 

 played by Fletcher of Saltoun was imitated by his 

 neighbours. But probably the gentleman who gave the 

 greatest impulse to agricultural progress in the county, 

 which shortly after extended itself over Scotland, was 

 Mr. Cockburn of Ormiston, to whom belongs the honour 

 of adopting the system of long leases. He early became 

 convinced that the surest way of stimulating the industry 

 of the farmer was to give him a substantial interest in 

 the improvement of the land which he farmed. One 

 of his tenants having enclosed his fields with hedges 

 and ditches at his own cost the first farmer in Scot- 



