108 RENNIE'S MASTER ANDREW MEIKLE. PART VII. 



land who adopted the practice ] his landlord, to en- 

 courage his spirit of improvement, granted him a lease 

 of his farm for nineteen years, renewable at the expiry 

 of that term for a like period. 



The results were found so satisfactory, that Mr. Cock- 

 burn was induced to extend the practice, and before long 

 it became generally adopted throughout the county. From 

 this point, then, agriculture advanced with extraordinary 

 rapidity. The more thriving farmers sent their sons into 

 England a practice long since reversed to learn the 

 best methods of farming : they employed better imple- 

 ments and improved methods of culture ; their landlords, 

 further to encourage them, built more commodious stead- 

 ings and farmhouses ; and they were greatly helped in this 

 course by the unusual facilities for obtaining credit which 

 persons of standing and property possessed, on the general 

 extension, from about the middle of last century, of what 

 is called the Scotch system of banking. 2 These measures 

 very shortly put an entirely new face upon the country. 

 The distinction of "in-field" and "out-field" altogether 

 ceased. Farms became completely enclosed, and sheep 

 and black cattle were no longer allowed to roam at 

 large. Fields were thrown together, and small holdings 

 consolidated into large ones. The moorland and the bog 

 were reclaimed and converted into fruitful farms. A 

 single instance, of some historical interest, may be given. 

 When the Eoyal army lay upon the field of Prestonpans 

 in 1745, their front was "protected by a deep bog," 

 across which Robert Anderson, a young gentleman 

 of the county, who knew every foot of the ground, con- 

 trived to lead the Pretender's army by a path known 

 only to himself. That bog, like so many others, has long 

 since been reclaimed by drainage and cultivation, and 

 now forms part of one of the most fertile farms in the 

 Lothians. 



1 Brown on ' Rural Affairs.' 



2 See Adam Smith's ' Wealth of Nations,' Book II., Chap. 2. 



