In PERTHSHIRE. 2jl 



mofs alone, without the afliftance of any ftream from the high- 

 er grounds. The fame method feems to have been followed in 

 the mofies of Kincardine and Flanders about forty years ago, 

 though with little effect, and without any general plan, till about 

 the year 1770, when the late Lord Kames, who was proprietor of 

 1500 acres of the mofs of Kincardine, and a confiderable por- 

 tion of mofs Flanders, adopted and greatly improved it. It is 

 now in general ufe, and is conducted in the following man-^ 

 ner. 



A channel, about eighteen inches wide and two feet deep, 

 is dug in the clay along the edge of the mofs intended to be 

 removed, through which a ftream of water is conducted about 

 a foot deep. The workman, with a wooden fpade, then cuts 

 away a layer of the mofs along the edge of the channel to the 

 breadth of about fix feet, and throws it into the water, which, if 

 the channel has a tolerable declivity, will ferve to carry away as 

 much mofs as fix men can throw into it. The mofs being thus 

 removed for the whole length of the channel, to the depth of about 

 thirteen inches, and to the diftance of about fix feet, the opera- 

 tion is repeated upon the mofs below, and £o on, till there is left 

 a ftratum of mofs, only fix inches thick, upon the furface of 

 the clay. This thin ftratum of mofs, being dried by the fum- 

 mer heat, is afterwards dug, or plowed, and burned, and when 

 the afhes thus produced are plowed into the clay, the ground 

 is thought to be fufficiently prepared for a crop of oats. 



At the bottom of the mofs when thus cleared, a multitude 

 of the bodies and roots of trees are found, which leave no 

 doubt, that the grounds now covered by the mofs have been 

 once occupied by a foreft. Though it is not, I believe, un- 

 ufual to meet with trees in mofies, yet they are rarely found 

 in fuch abundance as irt the prefent inftance. For they are 

 found here lying as thick upon the clay as they can be fup- 

 pofed to have grown upon it j and what is yet more fingular, 

 1 the 



