104 



Agriculture of Scotland, 



sowing is considered to be^ for Swedish turnips^ during the last 

 week of May^ and^ for the varieties of the white species^ from the 

 beginning until the middle of June. A half or three-fourths of 

 this crop, upon the drier lands, are eaten upon the ground bj 

 sheep, the remainder being generally what is technically called 

 stripped and carted home for soiling. The land is now ploughed 

 as cleared ; that part where the crop is early consumed being 

 often followed by wheat, while the later- cleared ground, and by 

 far the larger proportion of the whole, is reserved for barley. 

 These crops are also not unfrequently drilled or ribbed, and the 

 lands, being now sown down with grass-seeds, are depastured the 

 two following years, a proportion, equal, perhaps, to a sixth of the 

 whole, being the first year cut for hay. Oats are almost the in- 

 variable crop which follows, when the pasture-lands are again 

 subjected to the plough, although, upon some fine haugh or water- 

 side land, wheat has been occasionally grown at this stage of the 

 course with some success. 



This concludes the rotation — turnips again following ; and no 

 manure of any kind is applied to the intermediate corn- crops, even 

 when it has been thought advisable to take a wheat-crop in the 

 last of the course. 



The above is given as the general mode of management through- 

 out the district, but, as may be supposed, there are many excep- 

 tions to the uniform practice of this course ; although there is 

 little doubt that, for a period of any considerable extent, where 

 there is no access to an extra supply of manure, the grazing for 

 two years will be found to prove ultimately the most profitable 

 system of occupation on those soils not of the best descriptions. 

 On much of the lands of a first-rate quality, or of a stronger 

 nature, a four-shift rotation is pursued, while a plain fallow is 

 sometimes adopted on the latter description of soils, in the room 

 of a turnip- crop. 



This mode of management now extends over nearly 35,000 

 acres of this district, about 2000 acres of the remainder of the 

 whole being occupied in woods and plantations, and a little above 

 5000, chiefly on the higher lands, as sheep-pasture.'^ 



The extent annually in corn is thus about 14,500 acres, 13,300 

 in artificial grasses, and upwards of 7000 in turnips, potatoes, and 

 fallow, in the following proportion : — 



* New Statistical Accounts of Scotland, Nos.V. and XIV. For additional 

 valuable information of this kind, the writer has been much assisted by the 

 Report of the sub-committee (of which he formed one) of the Border Asso- 

 ciation for the encouragement of agriculture in reference to the Berwick 

 and Kelso railway. Kelso, 1836. 



