74 



Agriculture of Scotland. 



doubt it is highly probable^ when an improved system of manage- 

 ment was primarily applied to those favoured spots where agricul- 

 ture naturally first attached itself, — even when the operations were 

 far from perfect, — that a higher produce was the result than ob- 

 tains now under similar circumstances^, where^ by long-repeated 

 efforts, the soil may be presumed to be comparatively exhausted. 

 And this leads to the incidental remark that herein consists the 

 pre-eminent superiority of modern agriculture, that under the dis- 

 advantages of continued culture it is thus capable of maintaining 

 fertility. 



We shall only attempt, then, to give such examples as may 

 afford some criterion of comparison, and where we are best sup- 

 plied with information ; and take our instances from those lands 

 in highest cultivation, or rather, combining this circumstance 

 with the estimation in which the lands alluded to are held now, we 

 are led to consider most capable of yielding a large produce, pre- 

 mising that these instances rather afford evidence of the highest 

 returns of the time than of a fair average.* The first crop after 

 fallow we generally find stated as yielding a large produce. When 

 in wheat — converting the estimated produce into Winchester 

 bushels — the general result may be given, on those fine soils, at 

 from 30 to 40 bushels per Scots acre ; the barley following, at 

 between 36 and 48 bushels. The oats which followed were ex- 

 pected to give from 30 to 48 bushels. The pease, next in the 

 succession, were held very precarious, varying from scarcely any- 

 thing but straw, — which was held in considerable estimation, — to 

 46 bushels per acre. The wheat, upon its repetition after so many 

 previous crops, we still find stated, in some instances, so high as 

 from 28 to 40 bushels ; while, as more naturally might have been 

 expected, it is given as 24 bushels. The second crops of barley 

 after this wheat, — previous to which the land, as in the first in- 

 stance, indeed, received a sort of bastard fallow, being thrice 

 ploughed, — gave 30 to 35 bushels ; and the oats, which followed, 

 produced 24 to 35 bushels per acre. 



When the barley came first after fallow, 40 to 60 bushels per 

 Scotch acre, it is stated, were not uncommon. After turnips, 42 to 

 54 was the general yield. The produce of barley, after turnips, in 

 one instance we have met with, is stated at 60 bushels per acre. 

 Then follows clover, succeeded by wheat, yielding 40 bushels per 

 acre. Beans yielded 30 to 36, and were sometimes so high as 48 

 bushels per acre. 



In some instances where land was newly broken up after five or 



* These preliminary observations were considered necessary, from seeing, 

 besides, that the average produce of England and Wales, even in later times, 

 is estimated at very much under what is given below. 



