THE LOWLANDS. 305 



to purchase a steam-engine. He had just laid in his 

 winter stock of oilcake for his cattle, which amounted 

 to fifteen tons. He took me over his fields, which lay 

 on the slope of the hill, and I followed him with an 

 admiring eye for his barley and oats, but my mind a 

 little abstracted, I confess, by the sight of Abbotsford, 

 which lay below us, its turrets reflected in the Tweed. 

 "If Scott were still alive," said I to myself, "this fine 

 fellow would no doubt be one of his heroes in the Tales 

 of my Landlord" Who does not remember the delight- 

 ful description of the farm of Charlie's Hope in Guy 

 Mannering, with its well-drawn characters of Dandy 

 Dinmont and his wife Ailie, and all the amusing inci- 

 dents of fox-hunts and salmon-fishing ? Charlie's Hope 

 was not far from where I then stood, just over in the 

 valley of the Liddell, behind the blue-tinted peaks on 

 the verge of the horizon. Dinmont is the local name 

 for a shearling male sheep. 



A few miles further eastward, after coming down from 

 the Lammermoors (another name famed in poetry and 

 song), we enter upon the undulating country which 

 surrounds Edinburgh, called the Lothians, and contain- 

 ing also about 1,200,000 acres. The farming here is cer- 

 tainly not to be equalled. Eents of 30s., 60s., and even 

 5 per acre, are not uncommon ; the average is 25s., 

 with nearly as much in the shape of profit for the 

 farmer. The meadows in the neighbourhood of Edin- 

 burgh, which are irrigated with the sewage from 

 the town, show the maximum rent hitherto obtained 

 in Great Britain ; some let as high as 30 per 

 acre.* 



A great part of the wheat produced in Scotland is 



* These meadows are cut six or eight times during the season, and have brought, 

 we believe, in some instances, above 40 per annum. J. D. 



U 



