SECTION X. 



451 



experience ; but on cottage roofs, when the thatching is properly 

 executed, I can answer for more than twenty years, with very little 

 repair being wanted. 



At first, this sort of thatch could be procured at a small expense, 

 merely that of drawing or preparing the material ; but now, since it 

 has got into some repute in this district, about a third part more than 

 the price of straw is usually paid for the shows. As a substantial and 

 durable covering for houses, however, I can much recommend it, and 

 especially in situations where roofs are exposed externally to risk from 

 fire. But it is to be observed, that this remark applies to the outside 

 only ; for internally, and on the imder side of the thatch, which is 

 beyond the action of the atmosphere, it does not lose its character as 

 tow, and is very easily ignited. 



Note II. Page 241. 



As the banks of the Clyde, in this immediate neighbourhood, and the 

 rich vale of the Tay, or Carse of Gowrie, in Perthshire, are celebrated 

 for their orchards, the hint here given respecting a method of manuring 

 them, superior to the one commonly practised, may perhaps be worthy 

 the attention of the owners or occupiers of such grounds, and it shall 

 have a cursory notice in this place. In the district between Lanark 

 and Hamilton alone, in a favourable season, the value of the fruit 

 carried to Glasgow and elsewhere, independently of what is consumed 

 on the spot, amounts to not less than between £3000 and £4000. 



In these orchards, which are in general extremely well managed, the 

 trees are planted in rows, about forty feet distant from one another, and 

 from fifteen to twenty from plant to plant. When the ground is to be 

 manured, which must be repeated from time to time, in order to refresh 

 and invigorate the roots, the practice usually is to dig in farm-yard 

 dung over the whole surface, and to take a crop of potatoes ; or some- 

 times to ridge in the dung in the line of the intended potato-drills. 

 Now, instead of this, let half the quantity of dung be taken, and made 

 up, according to Lord Meadowbank's method, with a like quantity of 

 peat-moss, which last is to be had at no unattainable distance from any 

 of these orchards. If the peat be in a very advanced state of decom- 

 position, (from having been wheeled out some time before, or any other 

 cause,) then only one-third part of the dung will be required, and two- 

 thirds of peat. Let a trench then be opened in the centre between the 

 rows, four or four and a half feet wide, and cut as deep nearly as the 

 depth of the trenched ground, or stirred earth, of which the orchard soil 

 has been originally formed — say from sixteen to eighteen inches. Let 



