Agriculture of Scotland. 



79 



ping already alluded to. No doubt the same cause wliicli ope- 

 rated the necessity of an application to new soils tended to a more 

 careful attention to rotations and a restricted use of grain- crops. 

 Accordingly^ it appears that, in those districts where agriculture 

 had made most extensive progress during former times, a consi- 

 derable improvement now took place in the system of rotations, 

 particularly by the more frequent recurrence to artificial grasses 

 and turnips, towards which improvement the high price of but- 

 chers' meat no doubt tended. A more perfect mode of cultivating 

 the latter crop also now prevailed in a great degree, so that Daw- 

 son's system of sowing upon drills, — at twenty-eight inches apart, 

 separately formed and made up by the plough, after having the 

 manure applied in the centre of each, — may be said to be the only 

 plan adopted in those parts where any pretensions were made to 

 the knowledge of turnip-husbandry. The rotation practised with 

 success by the most eminent farmers, at this time, we find so much 

 improved as to be stated thus :* — 



I. — On strong rich clays. 

 Fallow. 3. Barley. 



1. Wheat. 4. Clover. 



2. Beans. 5. Oats. 



II. —On deep free loam. 



1. Turnips. 4. Oats.. 



2. Barley. 5. Beans. 



3. Clover. 6. Wheat. 



III. — On light, weak, and gravelly soils. 



1. Turnips. 3. Clover. 



2. Oats or Barley. 4. Oats, turnips, &c., 



as before. 



We should be mistaken, however, were we to suppose that this 

 more gentle course — though far from unexceptionable, considering 

 especially the mode in which some of the operations were per- 

 formed — was the general rule of management on such lands at this 

 time. We know that the frequent corn-crop system still pre- 

 vailed, and the vicious mode — even when clover came to be 

 adopted in the course, which certainly now became more fre- 

 quently the case — of interposing two culmiferous crops and a 

 crop of pease or beans between the fallow or turnips and the 

 clover, even on light lands, was still very prevalent. Thus — 



1. Fallow or Turnips. 4. Barley. 



2. Wheat or Oats. 5. Clover. 



3. Pease. 6. Oats or Wheat. 



* Essay on Green Crops, by Mr. P. Brodie, Garvald, Haddington, High- 

 land Society's Transactions, vol. i. 



