THE EDINBURCxH SOCIETY. 35 



assigned to John Swinton, junior of Swinton, Esquire, 

 advocate, for ' framing the best articles on Avhich a lease of 

 lands may be extended, whereby ground may be laboured 

 to the advantage of the tenant, and without prejudice to the 

 master.' A silver medal offered to ' the tenant who should 

 produce the greatest variety of marls and other natural 

 manures, with a short account of the places where they 

 were found, and the uses to ^\'hich they were applied,' was 

 won by Mr John Walker, Borgue, Kirkcudbrightshire. Mr 

 Walker got five guineas for a similar paper the following 

 year, when he is designed ' preacher of the gospel.' We shall 

 have occasion again to refer to him, but we may note here that 

 he afterwards became the Rev. Dr John Walker, Professor 

 of Natural History and Lecturer on Agriculture in the 

 Edinburgh University. A prize of £10 to the farmer who 

 should keep the best stud stallion was Avon by William Gun, 

 farmer at Hope-park, a name suggesting that the spirit of 

 the Society of Improvers yet lingered in the locality. A 

 premium of £4 to the farmer who should feed and sell to 

 the butchers the greatest number of calves not under 

 eight, each calf being six weeks old at least, was awarded 

 to Anne Wade, tenant, near Yester. So far as we can dis- 

 cover, these two prizes, adjudged in December 1756 for a 

 stallion, and for calves, are the first prizes aAvarded in Scot- 

 land for live stock. A premium for salt butter was won by 

 John Murray, tenant of Middlethird, Berwickshire. A prize 

 for cow-milk cheese was adjudged to Alex. Marjoribanks in 

 Slanerigg, and a second prize to Charles Dalrymple of 

 Orangefield. Henrietta, Duchess Dowager of Gordon* 



* Dr Robert Chambers, Edinburgh, quoting from an anonymous volume 

 published in 1 729, on ' Enclosing and Fallowing of Land, ' says there is 

 reason to believe that this lady was ' the very first person who was effective in 

 introducing any agricultural improvements into Scotland.' She was married to 

 her husband Cthen Lord Huntly) in 1 706, the year before the Union ; and, ' a 

 spark of her father's genius making her desire to see her adopted country put 

 in a better aspect, she took some trouble to effect the object by bringing down to 

 some of her father-in-law's estates English ploughs, with men to work them, 

 and who were acquainted with the business of fallowing, heretofore utterly un- 

 known in Scotland. Her ladyship instructed the people of her neighbourhood 

 in the proper way of making hay, of which they were previously ignorant, and set 

 an example in the planting of muirs and the laying out of gardens. Urged 



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