132 THE SUPREMACY OF THE LOTHIANS 



between the coast and the railway. The soils are red 

 and sandy, mixed with a good deal of stone ; they are 

 really drift soils, resting chiefly on an outcrop of the 

 limestone near the shore ; but they have been derived 

 in the main from the Old Red Sandstone which forms 

 the country rock a little farther inland. Chemically 

 speaking, there is nothing special about the soils ; 

 physically they are light easily working loams, with 

 a large proportion of sand particles but containing 

 enough clay to give them substance and water-holding 

 capacity. While they would be valuable soils any- 

 where, their special excellence is largely due to the 

 way they are adapted to the climate prevailing in East 

 Lothian, where the springs are late and it is important 

 to have a soil warming up quickly ; where also the 

 summers are cool, so that little danger attaches to soils 

 like these, which would suffer from drought under 

 hotter conditions. A really dry summer is not desired 

 on the best of these Dunbar soils, whereas many of the 

 finest soils farther south never display their superiority 

 to such a marked degree as in a parching season. 



We paid a visit to the farm of Mr. James Hope, of 

 East Barns, near Dunbar a farm so well known to 

 agriculturists, not only in Great Britain but from beyond 

 the sea, that we may be pardoned for mentioning it by 

 name. Before the wave of depression in the 'seventies 

 and 'eighties of the last century, East Lothian farming 

 was a model to the whole world, and the farmhouses 

 were filled with gentlemen's sons who came to learn 

 practical agriculture at its best. Few districts, how- 

 ever, were more heavily hit by the fall in prices ; the 

 production was planned on a scale too high to be pro- 

 fitable under the changed conditions ; and of the men 

 who then were the pride of Scotch farming very few 

 are now left in the district. Mr. Hope, however, 



