306 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



grown in the Lothians, which are particularly famous for 

 cereal crops. The soil at one time was reckoned in- 

 capable of bearing even rye ; only barley and oats were 

 cultivated, and these are still the cereals generally grown 

 in the rest of the country. It is mentioned that in 1727 a 

 field of wheat, of eight acres, about a mile from Edinburgh, 

 was the object of universal curiosity. Now, one-fifth of 

 the land, or about 250,000 acres, is in wheat, and in good 

 seasons this crop yields from thirty to forty-five bushels 

 per acre. Here again it is the Norfolk rotation more or 

 less modified according to local circumstances, but still 

 maintaining the general character of that system, which 

 produces this large return. Turnip cultivation, the basis 

 of the rotation, is nowhere better understood than in the 

 Lowlands. Indeed, we find in the Lothians, more than 

 in England, the realisation of all agricultural improve- 

 ments. A complete system of drainage has existed 

 for a long time past. Every farm, or nearly so, has 

 its steam-engine. Stabulation of cattle has been long 

 in common practice. The thrashing-machine was in- 

 vented, at the end of last century, by a Scotchman of the 

 name of Meikle, and was in use in Scotland before it 

 reached England. It was also a Scotchman (Bell) who in- 

 vented the reaping-machine, and who claims priority over 

 the Americans. The most successful and extensive expe- 

 riments, in the application of steam to cultivation, which 

 have yet been made in the three kingdoms, were carried 

 out at the Marquess of Tweeddale's, near Haddington. 



In the county of Haddington alone, which contains not 

 quite 200,000 acres, or scarcely the extent of one of our 

 smallest French arrondissements, there were, in 1853, 

 185 steam-engines employed for agricultural purposes, 

 of an average power of six horses each, being nearly one 

 for every 1000 acres besides eighty-one water-mills. 



