XI 

 AYRSHIRE: EARLY POTATOES 



WE had often been told of the early potato growing 

 in Ayrshire as a form of highly specialized farming 

 so admirably carried out as to rival even the agriculture 

 of the Lothians ; from Fifeshire, therefore, we found 

 our way to Glasgow and down the West Coast. Close 

 to Glasgow and in northern Ayrshire the land is 

 generally poor, for the Coal Measures rarely yield 

 anything better than cold, stiffish, unfertile soils ; but, 

 thanks to the markets provided by the huge industrial 

 population close at hand, the land there is intensively 

 farmed for milk. To maintain the production at a 

 high pitch the land has to be under the plough, but 

 the Ayrshire farmer has devised a rotation which gives 

 him the food he wants and does away with turnips, 

 the most difficult and least remunerative crop on such 

 wet soils, where also the drainage is much impaired 

 owing to the constant subsidences brought about by 

 coal mining. Oats are followed by oats, and many 

 of the Ayrshire farms are celebrated for the quality 

 of the meal from these oats ; in the second oat crop 

 seeds are sown which are hayed for the next two 

 years and then pastured for three, whereupon the oat 

 crop comes round again. The farms are not large 

 1 20 acres is a not unusual size and on them will 

 be employed a ploughman, an "orra" or odd man, 



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