PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 725 
Application to his Majesty, you could not fail to have sufficient Influence to get 
such a Professor or Inspector named or both.’ 
But alas! Neither professor nor inspector did Maxwell see, for within two 
years Prince Charles Edward had landed in Scotland, the Marquis of Tullibardine 
was rallying the Highlanders to the Stuart flag, and the loyalty of the 
Honourable Society was subjected to a strain which it could not withstand. Most 
of the members took the advice of Duncan Forbes and held out for the King, but 
others, like the Duke of Perth and Lords Cromartie, Balmerino, and Lovat, fol- 
lowed Prince Charlie. When peace was restored, the Honourable Society, and 
not a few of its members, had ceased to exist; but the purpose for which it was 
founded had been achieved, and the Spirit of the Improver lived on. 
One of the objects of the Honourable Society of Improvers was to develop 
local societies. Two of these may be traced in Scotland before 1745, one in 
Buchan, the other in East Lothian. The former appears to have been started 
about 1730 by James Ferguson of Pitfour among his Buchan tenantry. Ferguson 
was a friend of Thomas Hope’s and believed in his methods of ‘preaching 
improvements.’ He supplied the members of the Buchan Society with books 
and he himself attended their meetings. In 1735 this Society published a small 
volume which had been drawn up by the members at their meetings, entitled ‘ A 
True Method of Treating Light Hazely Ground; or, an Exact Relation of the 
Practice of Farmers in Buchan containing Rules for Infields, Outfields, Haughs, 
and Laighs.’ In many respects this is a remarkable little work. It relates 
exclusively to local farming, and while the inspiration may have come from 
Edinburgh, the book itself bears no evidence of outside influence. Their indepen- 
dence is indeed a noteworthy characteristic of the members of this Buchan 
Society. From certain references which appear in their ‘ Proceedings’ it may be 
surmised that they were well acquainted with agricultural writers. But instead 
of recounting the opinions of others, and speculating as to their value for Buchan, 
this Society of tenant-farmers adopted the true scientific method, they described 
their practices in detail, discussed them fully, and, being satisfied that they 
were applicable to local conditions, they reduced their methods to rules. But the 
Society were most careful to point out that these rules held only for the conditions 
of Buchan. Their soil ‘ differs from all others in natural qualities,’ it is therefore 
necessary to give ‘uncommon rules in managing it.” They even exclude land 
lying near the sea in their own immediate neighbourhood ; ‘in this relation,’ they 
say, ‘we make no record of our coast side—neither are our Rules calculated for 
that part of the country, but are only to be received at two or three miles distance 
from the sea.’ 
The Buchan Society’s attitude to the agricultural practices recommended by 
others is well illustrated by the following comment on steeps for seed. Several 
methods of steeping are mentioned by them, but they add: ‘This we doubt not 
may have some good effect, but frankly own we can give no advice from ex- 
perience, and so refer the inquisitive to the elaborate works of elder practi- 
tioners.’ In matters too deep for them, their philosophy rested on a firm basis. 
Here, for example, is an explanation of the early fruiting of wild oats. This 
pestilent weed they urge all farmers to destroy by ‘cropping the wild oats how 
soon they come out of the hose, who appear always about eight days before the 
tame. ‘Thus is Providence so kind as to tack that to their nature which is the 
means of their own destruction.’ 
Although improved practices did not reach Scotland for a century after they 
had been adopted in England, they spread much more rapidly among the northern 
people. In 1720 there were but a few landowners who made any attempt at 
improvements in husbandry. In 1723 the Honourable the Society of Improvers 
was formed, and ten years later we can trace a small society of Aberdeenshire 
tenants applying the scientific method to the common practice of Scottish farming. 
The tenant farmers of the North had educated men within their own ranks, and 
through these men a knowledge of improved practice quickly reached the others. 
The compiler of the Buchan ‘ Rules,’ James Arbuthnot, tenant of Wester Rora 
in the parish of Longside, was a type of this class. He had received a classical 
education and belonged to a branch of a well-known family. The verses of a 
local poet written on his death show him to have been a man greatly respected 
in Buchan. A referenée to men of the same class—the educated Scottish farmer 
of the eighteenth century—is made in a lecture given by the Rev. Harry Stuart 
