22 
Landmarlis in British Tarmincj, 
begins his Husbandry Anatomised^ by admitting that, though 
he taught others to farm, he had failed himself as a farmer. - 
He recommends plentiful manuring, the housing of cattle, the 
increase of hedges and enclosures, the granting of long leases. 
Without “ long tacks,” he says that it is idle to expect improve- 
ments. “If a tenant improves his laud the Landlord obligith 
him either to augment his Kent, or remove, insomuch that its 
become a Proverb (and I think none more true), Boiich and Sit, 
Improve and Flit.” He does not, however, expect that his 
advice will be taken. People will probably say to him, “ Away 
with your fool Notions, there are too many Bees in your Bonet- 
case, we will satisfie ourselves with such Measures as our 
Fathers have followed hitherto.” 
The Union gave a great stimulus to Scotch agriculture. 
Between the cattle-lifters of the Highlands and the moss- 
troopers of the Border, Lowland farmers had enjoyed few incen- 
tives to good farming. Donaldson was followed by Lord Bel- 
haven, whose Countryman’s Budiments was reprinted in 1723. 
Two years later, Tlie Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of 
Agriculture in Scotland was instituted. In 1743, Maxwell, who 
edited the Select Transactions of the Society, describes the 
results of its labours in the past eighteen years : — 
The practice of draining, inclosing, summer fallowing, sowing flax, 
hemp, rape, turnip and grass seed, planting cabbages after, and potatoes 
with, the plough, in fields of great extent is introduced ; and, according to 
the general opinion, more corn grows now where it was never known to . 
grow before, these twenty years past, than perhaps a sixth of all that the 
Kingdom was in use to produce at any time before.” 
The Earl of Stair took the lead in “ improvements in Lucern 
and St. Poin, uncommon guests in our Climate and Soil, his 
Turnip, Cabbage, and Carrot Husbandry by the Plough.” 
Other landlords followed in the same direction. Lord Hopetoun, 
Lord Cathcart, Sir John Dalrymple, Cockburn of Ormiston, 
Hope of Eankeilor, are among the best known pioneers of 
Scottish farming. At first the progress was slow. The tenants 
were without capital, and they followed uniform traditional 
practices. The croft land w'us ploughed for three years and 
rested one ; the field land was ploughed three years and rested 
three. It was difficult to move the John Trot genius of farming 
from this immemorial round. If a stranger was brought in who 
improved his land, he was called a land louper, threatened, 
intimidated, and frightened out of the country by incendiarism.' 
When once the advantages of the new system were under- 
stood, the agriculture of Scotland improved with extraordinary 
’ See Select Transactions of the Society of Imjirovers, vol. ii. p. 371. 
