34 



miserably poor, and all of you incalculably less com- 

 fortable than you migfht be. I have already told you, 

 that large farmers (holding- from 100 to 1000 acres,) 

 * in particular parts of Scotland pay from &l. to 8?. 

 per Scotch acre, which is a good deal smaller than 

 ours. How do they contrive to pay these enormous 

 rents, when ten barrels of wheat (now worth only 

 25 shilhngs a barrel) is probably above the average 

 of that crop on the Scotch acre, and their barley 

 crops are greatly inferior to those which are gro«Ti 

 in my pet parish of Carne — how, I ask, is even 6/. per 

 acre, aU round, to be paid, where every male work- 

 man costs the farmer 30/. a year ? By not depending 

 at all on corn for the rent ; by growing clover and 

 turnips for cattle feeding, which enables them every 

 year to manure one-fourth of their extensive farms, 

 without sending 10 or 20 miles for lime, at a despe- 

 rate expense, as my neighbours are in the practice of 

 doing. Crops of M-heat alone could not enable the 

 Scotch farmer to pay his rent at the ordinary price 

 of that grain, but a due proportion of turnips will 

 make up amply for the deficiency — after which comes 

 an enormous corn crop laid down ^vith clover : 20/. 

 is often cleared there, by a single fat cow or bullock. 

 Now why cannot you, on a small scale, turn your 

 farms to this profitable course of husbandry, and feed 

 one, two, or more milch or fattening cows, which 

 will encrease the productiveness of your land, and 

 answer much better than forcing successive crops of 

 com, which impoverish it so wofuUy that, at last, 

 labour and seed are thrown fruitlessly away. 



Be independent in a great measure of corn markets : 

 consume the produce of your farms at home. Milk, 

 and butter, and a fat cow, sheep and pigs will pay 



* East Lothian and Ber^vickshire, for instance — I am far, 

 however, from asserting that such rents are in many places 

 paid, and in sucli cases, houses, offices, &c. are kept in repair 

 by the landlord ; in the present state of the markets such rents 

 could not be paid any where. 



