210 
AGRICULTURE IN SCOTLAND. -WOOL RAISING IN THE UNITED STATES. 
^grintUure in Scotland.—No. 9. 
Since my last, I have enjoyed a most delightful 
excursion into the county of Forfar, in company with 
Prof. Johnston. During the week of our absence, 
the weather was unusually settled for this climate, 
almost every day being mild, bright, and springlike, 
as heart could wish. 
Dundee was our first stopping place, and on our 
way thither through Fife, we were much interested 
by the activity which prevailed among the agricultu¬ 
ral population. Almost every farmer was taking 
advantage of the fine weather to sow his oats and 
barley, and in many instances the more forward had 
begun their potato planting. But there were many 
fields where the dark wet spots showed a want of 
drainage, the occupiers of which were obliged to 
wait for yet more sun, while their more enterprising 
and wiser neighbors, by the aid of drains, were im¬ 
proving to the utmost the precious hours of an un¬ 
usual seed time. 
At Dundee, the day after our arrival, Prof. John¬ 
ston delivered a lecture on the “Cultivation of the 
Soil ” to a large and deeply interested audience, ft 
was market day, and I had afterwards the pleasure 
of going among the intelligent farmers of the sur¬ 
rounding districts, and hearing their expressions of 
approbation, and acknowledgments of instruction 
We were the guests of Sir John Ogilvy, Bart., 
whose seat (Baldovan House) is about three miles 
from the city. The situation is beautiful, and though 
so near Dundee, quite secluded. The largest rookery 
that I have yet seen surrounds the house; some of 
the nests are built within a few feet of the windows, 
and the cawing is incessant. There are probably 
8,000 to 10,000 of them, and the neighboring far¬ 
mers complain bitterly of their depredations. I have 
always been a defender of birds, and especially 
admire rookeries as connected with the antiquities so 
- fascinating to us from the new world; but 1 was 
somewhat staggered when I was shown fields of 
turnips, where at least the half were injured by the 
rooks, who first learned to eat them during a severe 
storm, some years since, and have never lost their 
acquired taste. They are exceedingly destructive to 
potatoes also, and where there are such large rook¬ 
eries as those of Baldovan, it is necessary to keep 
boys constantly in the field to watch them. Their 
advocates contend that the immense quantities of 
grubs, worms, and insects destroyed by them, more 
than counterbalances these evils. I am inclined to 
believe this true where their numbers are not too 
large, but am very doubtful in cases like the present. 
Sir John Ogilvy is so far convinced of the contrary, 
that he has this year seriously commenced thinning 
his rookery, by destroying the eggs and the young. 
Sir John has done great good to the farmers of his 
neighborhood, by his enterprising but judicious treat¬ 
ment of one of his farms, which he took into his 
own hands four or five years ago, when the lease 
expired. The soil was wet, mossy, intractable, and 
naturally poor. By draining, subsoil plowing, and 
skilful manuring, he has more than doubled its 
value, and his crops bring the very highest prices. 
His system, and that of others near Dundee, is a 
rather singular one. Very little stock is kept, and 
everything is sold off. The turnips, potatoes, &c., 
are planted in such a way as to be easily divisible 
into small lots, which are sold separately by auction 
or roup, as it is here called. The seller is under 
obligation to deliver the crop whenever the buyer 
wishes. If it is grain, he thrashes, but is not often 
obliged to harvest it. Everything is thus carried off 
the land ; but large returns are made in the shape of 
manure, from the cow-feeders, &c., in the city. 
The rotation on these farms is an unusual one, and 
1 will give Sir John Ogilvy’s. I, grass; 2, oats ; 3, 
turnips, fully manured—about 25 tons per acre; 4, 
wheat, half manured—about 10 tons per acre; 5, 
potatoes, fully manured ; 6, barley, with grass seeds, 
half manured. This may serve as an example of 
most farmers in that immediate neighborhood. Some¬ 
times turnips are grown the fifth year, and potatoes 
the third. Wheat shifts in the same way with bar¬ 
ley. Occasionally two crops of oats are taken, but 
in that case the last is manured. It will be observed 
that in this rotation every crop, excepting grass and 
:oats, is manured. They say that their land will not 
do without it. Guano has now come into general 
use, and is found to do best at the rate of 3 cwt. pet 
acre, with a half dunging. 
As every crop, excepting wheat, and sometimes 
barley, is at once sold off, this method of farming 
brings quick returns, and does not require so large a 
capital as other ways; but the interest of the pro¬ 
fession is in a great measure destroyed; they lose the 
pleasure to be derived from the rearing of stock anti 
the consumption of at least a portion of their crops 
upon their awn premises. As one of them observed, 
it becomes a kind of retail shopkeeping, the object 
being simply to raise as laFge a crop as possible, and 
sell it out in little patches to the highest bidder. After 
the sale comes the worst part of all, the liability of 
interruption in the most pressing work, by a demand 
from some one of these buyers to carry his turnips, 
potatoes, grain, or straw, into Dundee. In my next 
,1 will give some further observations on my journey 
in this section of Scotland. John T. Norton 
Edinburgh, April 30, 1845. 
WOOL RAISING IN^THE UNITED STATES 
The suggestions of your correspondent R., as to 
“ the policy of American Farmers” in associating to¬ 
gether by their representatives in a national capacity, 
are well worthy the consideration of the class to 
whom they are addressed. We need to be officially 
advised from time to time, by some intelligent board 
of agriculturists, who have the means of forming a 
correct opinion from authentic sources, of the ever 
varying wants of nations, and their present and pro¬ 
bable future productions, by which alone, American 
agriculture can be shaped in time to meet the most 
profitable return through the agency of our commerce! 
In the absence of all such national agency, we must, 
individually, pick up such isolated facts as happen 
to present themselves, from which important infer¬ 
ences may be drawn for the guidance of the American 
farmer. Such an one is afforded in a late number of 
the London Farmers’ Magazine, in which the pro¬ 
gress of the colonial wool trade with the mother 
country of Great Britain, is given at some length. 
The crowded columns of the Agriculturist will admit 
only the briefest synopsis of this history which 1 
; subjoin. 
In commencing the article, the writer says : “ It is 
.scarcely a quarter of a century when the announce- 
