On the Af/ricuUural Improvements of Lincolnshire. 289 
returned into Lincolnshire ; and in order to be assured of not 
haviuff ijrnorantly over-estimated the excellence of Lincolnshire 
farininsf, have carefully examined, during the last autumn, North- 
umberland and the south of Scotland. 
It is not until you reach the further part of Northumberland 
that superior farming is found. There indeed around Belford you 
find it excellent, and on the land of Lord Grey and of Greenwich 
Hospital ;* again too, in following the banks of the Till, down to 
the Tweed : yet even between these two fine districts a moorland 
tract must be crossed, neglected indeed, but not barren. So 
again in Scotland, 30 miles beyond Berwick, arriving at Dunbar 
you find, along the sea-coast, some of the famous farms of East 
Lothian. Tt is an extraordinary soil, for which the tenants, 
farming admirably, pay the well-known rents of 41, or 51. the 
acre, which some suppose to be the common rents of East 
Lothian. But ride two or three miles only inland, and you find, 
first, land well farmed at 21. an acre ; then land at II. per acre — 
some of it very ill farmed, foul, and out of condition ; then the 
Lammermoor Hills, which are not farmed at all, but are in the 
same state as Lincoln Heath when the Dunslon beacon was 
lighted nightly. Onwards again to Edinburgh, for 30 miles 
through the Lothians, you will see good land most excellently 
farmed, but sometimes also moderate land in a very slovenly state. 
II from thence you travel along the mail-coach road to Carlisle, 
on losing sight of Edinburgh Castle, you pass for 70 miles 
through the beart of South Scotland, over moors covered with a 
rank grass, which shows that they might bear something better, 
or among scanty corn-crops, which prove tliat nature has been 
little assisted by art. I cannot therefore place the general farming 
of southern Scotland or of Northumberland on a level with the 
farming of our southern counties, such as Buckinghamshire, but 
rather with that of North Devon ; nor the general farming of East 
Lothian on a level with the general farming of Lincolnshire ; nor 
the best farming of East Lothian on a level with the best farming 
of Lincolnshire, because it is the best land only of East Lothian 
on which such noble examples of farming are given, while in 
Lincolnshire the barren heath and wold have been taught nearly 
equal luxuriance. 
Being thus satisfied, by a journey in the north of our island, 
that the discovery which I owed to Mr. Handley last year was 
not imaginary, but that Lincolnshire affords a very high example 
of farming, I had wished to lay before our Society, in detail, the 
various modes of management by which that excellence has been 
attained, but I have not enough mastered the subject. As the 
* I may mention also the farm of Mr. Nairn at Warns Mills, near Bel- 
ford, and that of Mr. Jobson, of Chillingham. 
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