Experiences up to the end of October, 1904. 167 



show how agricultural improvements may be carried out, in some 

 cases without additional cost, and in others with a considerable 

 saving of the expenditure at present incurred. 



Gondvding Bemarks. — When visiting Clifton-on-Bowmont one day 

 with an intelligent gardener, I remarked — "Is it not wonderful to 

 see such a fine crop grown on such poor soil?" He replied— " Give 

 me a good turf, and I don't care what the soil underneath it is "—a 

 point he practically illustrated as to the value of turf by robbing my 

 park of it whenever he could, though he had full command of all 

 kinds of manures. I may remind the reader here of the quotation on 

 the title page, where it is declared that "To raise a thick turf 



ON A NAKED SOIL WOULD BE WORTH VOLUMES OF SYSTEMATIC KNOW- 

 LEDGE." This is what has been done at Clifton-on-Bowmont. In 

 little more than two years we can now raise a turf which, at a little 

 distance, looks like old pasture, and on a close inspection might be 

 taken for five-year-old grass, while in five years we have grown 

 pasture that no one could distinguish from old grass. I much regret 

 not having kept note of the remarks made by agriculturists — to the 

 amount of one, hundred a year — who have visited the farm. On 

 remarking to one of them that some of them had said that what they 

 saw had been a revelation to them, he said — " And it is a revelation 

 to me too." When lately showing an old agriculturist from East 

 Lothian the Kaimrig field {vide page 1.38) he finally observed, v/ith a 

 strange mixture of wonder and annoyance in his face — " We have 

 been like children." In some instances we have certainly trebled 

 the letting value of the land. Dr. Voelcker (chemist of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society of England) this year remarked when visiting 

 the farm that I should have kept in each field an untouched patch 

 to show what the land originally was, for that it was now difficult 

 to believe how bad it had been. What the tenant who had for long 

 occupied the farm declared to be the worst field on it is now so 

 changed that farmers will not believe in its ever having been bad 

 land. But just as land of originally good quality, when mixed with 

 a suitable proportion of vegetable matter, may be turned into the 

 worst possible land when this necessary agent has been exhausted, so 

 may the very worst land be raised to the value of good if you " raise 

 a thick turf on the naked soil," and if we keep on raising another 

 before the preceding one has been exhausted we shall have done all 

 we can to promote the fertility of the soil, and, therefore, the 

 condition of agriculture. I once said to an old tenant on the estate 

 — "How much more stock can you keep on your young grass fields 

 since you have adopted my advice as to altering your grasses ?" 

 " I can keep," he said, "one-third more stock," which, I need hardly 

 say, doubles the value of the land. "Now," I said, "I wish to ask 

 you another question. Did you not at one time consider me to be 

 (the fate of most innovators at first) a madman?" He laughed 

 heartily, wagged his head from side to side, and said — " Oh, no, 

 no, no !" but in a tone which meant " Yes, yes, yes !" It may not 



