236 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
In walks about town and in the adjacent country, nu¬ 
merous mills are met with, all upon the same plan, for 
grinding wheat, rye, &c. They are scarcely more com¬ 
plicated than the pestle and mortars of the ancients— 
comparatively speaking. A building in Marburg, about 
seventy feet long and one story high, contains seven of 
the entire suites of apparatus. Each stone has its sepa¬ 
rate wheel, and is of about two thirds the diameter of 
those used in Rochester, and in the northern states gene¬ 
rally. The bolt is a little trough, about four feet Jong, 
six inches wide, and three deep, with a linen sieve 
across the bottom. It is subjected to a lengthwise, vi¬ 
bratory motion, and is inclined so as to conduct the pul¬ 
verized grain pretty rapidly from one extreme to the 
other. This and the whole hopper, stone and all, occu¬ 
py scarcely more than twelve feet cube. The best flour 
is ground three or four times; of this the white bread is 
made in little biscuits, while the loaves in use as the 
staple by every body, are dark brown and contain rye. 
Compare this with the sources of bread in the Genesee 
valley! Here with one stone, a man may grind, per¬ 
haps, ten bushels in a day—and with fifty stones, a cor¬ 
responding proportion would be ground. I remember 
having read that in the season of 1841, something like 
2500 barrels, daily, were ground and packed in the city 
of Rochester alone. The statement of this index of the 
perfection of our machinery for flour making, does not 
fail to bring an exclamation in Giessen. 
The lectures are all in progress. Liebig’s course is 
attended by more than a hundred students—some of 
whom, however, are members of the medical class. 
You have doubtless already learned that he is applying 
science to the manufacture of manures for England. I 
send you herewith, a letter published not long since in 
England, and of which, as there is a copy right reserved, 
you may not receive another copy. If you can find 
room for it in the Cultivator, I wish it might have a 
place for your readers. It certainly presents in the clear¬ 
est light—in the most comprehensible and convincing 
form, the advantage which will result from the applica¬ 
tion of science to agriculture. 
Truly yours, E. N. Horsford. 
MR. MITCHELL’S LETTERS—No. VIII. 
The M>orlands, of Scotland—Their Cultivation and Pro¬ 
ducts. 
Inverness, North of Scotland, June 16, 1845. 
Luther Tucker, Esq.— My ast contained notes 
through the bog districts of Ireland ; the present dates 
from the capital of a still wilder country. Nothing 
can exceed the sterility and impracticable nature of 
much of the Scotch moorland. The soil is meagre, 
rests upon beds of coarse gravel, and is covered with 
heather, affording nourishment to a few sheep and black 
cattle, not much larger than the sheep of England, and 
to the multitudes of grouse which draw southern shooters 
by thousands in the months of August and September. 
These moors are measured, not by acres but miles, and 
lie variously from 1,000 to 4,000 feet above the sea. 
Habitations are seen only at great intervals of distance, 
and consist either of a shooting lodge, keeper’s cottage, 
or shepherd s hut. The roads are few, and except in 
the shooting season, commencing with the 12th of Au¬ 
gust, are travelled only by the mail coaches. 
I speak now more particularly of the great inland dis¬ 
tricts both north and south of the Caledonian canal. 
Agricultural resources are necessarily exceedingly limit¬ 
ed. The annual rental value of the moorlands proper 
for grazing, would not exceed two cents an acre. The 
shooting privileges and trout and salmon fishing in the 
streams that are scattered over them, would add perhaps 
eight or ten cents to the yearly value; depending, how¬ 
ever, much upon the strictness of preservation and con¬ 
venience of ; ccess. It is not uncommon to pay some 
$2,000 to $3,000 for the privilege of shooting over a moor 
a single season. Estates arc of enormous extent. Two 
days since i. xode for upwards of fifty miles through the 
Athol property alone. Timber is chiefly pine and larch_ 
only to be met with in plantation^ or occasionally rem 
nants of native growth, scattered through the glens and 
upon the sides of the mountains. Nor do the plantations 
make an inconsiderable figure in the landscape of this 
wilderness, since the number of larches planted by the 
late Duke of Athol exceeded twenty-seven millions. 
Birch grows extensively in the valleys, but reaches a 
size only sufficient for fencing and fuel. Thirty to forty 
miles of distance may nevertheless be gone over in the 
moor districts without sight of a tree. 
Grazing prevails to such an extent in the Highlands as 
to deprive the majority of the population of any steady 
employment, and extreme poverty is the natural conse¬ 
quence. The huts of the poorer classes are even more 
wretched than any I met with in Ireland. The walls are 
of stone and mud, the roof of turf, and the floor the bare 
ground; sometimes a rude chimney is constructed, but 
oftener the smoke is allowed to escape at the door. Their 
food, oat meal and potatoes. They manage to put in a 
small patch of oats about their cottages, which the younger 
children watch against the depredations of the roving 
cattle; and in the valleys the farmers allow those who 
please to plant with potatoes as much land as they wili 
supply with manure. Oats and potatoes, with some 
wheat, are principally grown in the better agricultural 
districts of the north. The chief agricultural exports 
are sheep, wool and black cattle. The sheep are mostly 
the black faced, of very smal size, and light and coarse 
fleeces. They are extremely hardy, and as nimble as 
goats; the mutton is not fat, but very sweet; and it com¬ 
mands an extra price in the London market. This breed 
of sheep is frequently crossed in the more fertile dis¬ 
tricts with the Cheviot sheep of the south, and in some 
the Cheviots are wholly preserved, or crossed with 
still larger sheep of England—the finer wool and larger 
carcases of the latter ensuring larger profits. An an¬ 
nual fair is held in Inverness in July, at which it is 
estimated 800,000 pounds of wool, and 100,000 sheep 
change owners. The black cattle are small, but the beef 
is highly esteemed for its delicate flavor, and maintains 
a good price even when it comes in competition with 
the famous breeds of the south. 
Such dairies as are to be found, favor the Ayrshire 
blood. The butter is good—worked wholly with beach 
paddles, and neatly turned into forms of acorns and straw¬ 
berries for the table. Much poor cheese is made in parts 
of the Highlands, which would not do discredit to some 
of our white cheese makers at home, but the best is 
either from England or Ayrshire. 
The implements of agriculture are not of so improved 
a character as in the south. Neither draining or drilling 
is general. The crops are not clean, and from the win¬ 
dow where I sit, I can distinguish the oat fields over some 
miles of territory by the yellow blossoms of the mustard. 
Great numbers of Highland ponies are annually sent to 
England. They are very hardy and strong, and are sold 
from £3 to £6 a head. Guano is used extensively near 
the seaport towns, and sea manure along the coasts. 
Hedges are not numerous, nor are divisions of any kind, 
herds of cattle being generally attended, even in the im¬ 
mediate neighborhood, by a watcher. Farmers are just 
now busy with the sowing of turneps, and the cleaning 
and earthing of their potatoe crop. These crops are 
both planted in drills. The potatoes are put three or four 
inches apart, directly upon the manure, and covered with 
the plow—afterward rolled. When an inch out of 
ground the crop is thoroughly hoed by hand; it is next 
gone through with a scarifier, which thoroughly loosens 
the soil between the rows; this is followed by the plow 
throwing a furrow against the potatoes from either side. 
One thing is highly noticeable, both of this and of every 
drilled crop I have yet seen in Great Britain—this is the 
extreme regularity and evenness of the rows. A furrow 
of a hundred rods in length will not vary a foot from a 
straight line. This is effected not by measuring and 
timing, but simply by the expertness of the plowman and 
the perfect training of the horses. It is unnecessary to 
say how much this adds to the appearance, as well as to 
the facility with which acrop is cultivated and harvested. 
Here, as in every part of Scotland I have visited, the 
native gardeners maintain their celebrity; vegetables 
being abundant and good. Farm cottages of the better 
