134 IMPROVEMENTS. 



rots as early as 1756.^^ But the most fruitful stim- 

 ulus for improvement were the Acts of Parliament 

 between the years 1750 and 1760, for collecting tolls 

 and making roads. ^"^ It is not easy to estimate the 

 benefit which agriculture has derived from good 

 roads, and the want of communication was one of the 

 causes of the slow progress of the art in former 

 times. 



About this time the Earl of Eglinton established a 

 Farmers' Society, and presided over it himself for a 

 number of years. ^'' The gradual advance in price 

 and produce, the consequence of increase of popula- 

 tion and manufactures, giving a poAverful impulse to 

 rural industry, rendered possible the changes in the 

 system of leases and the restrictions on cultivation 

 and rotation. The Fairlie rotation, introduced by 

 the Earl of Eglinton, was pursued by William Fairlie, 

 after this nobleman's death, not only upon the Earl's 

 extensive domain, but also on a considerable property 

 of his own.^^ Every farm as it came out of lease 

 was enclosed, and divided by sufficient fences into 

 three or more parts, and Avas allowed to remain in 

 grass till it recovered from the exhausted course of 

 evil management already stated. The land was 

 limed, convenient houses and offices were builded, and 

 a lease granted, usually for eighteen years, under cov- 

 enant not to plough more than one third of the farm in 

 any one year, nor to plough the same land more than 

 three successive years. With the third crop, the land 



2° Alton, op. cit. p. 80. «i Alton, op. cit. p. 678. 



2« Enc. Brit, ii, 262. '• Farmers' Mag. 1804, p. 783. &.lton, op. cit. p. SI. 



