and he projected the walks over the grounds now known as the meadow walks, which were long the most fashionable place of resort for the citizens.

779. The Dukes of Hamilton and Athol, Lords Stair, Hopeton, and Islay, were active members of this society, and especially Cockburn of Ormiston, already mentioned (772.), who was one of its principal promoters and founder.

780. Dawson, of Frogden in Roxburghshire, is a man to whom modern agriculture is more indebted than perhaps any other. Dawson studied the Norfolk agriculture for several years, and conceived the happy idea of combining it with the system of Tull, and improving on both. The result was his invention of the culture of turnips on raised drills, with the dung buried directly under the plants. He also extended the use of lime, and of artificial grasses and clovers, and on better principles; and was the first to introduce the practice of ploughing with two horses without a driver. On these improvements depend the superior excellence of what is known as the convertible or Berwickshire husbandry. It is this husbandry which has thrown capital into the hands of the farmers of Scotland, and rendered the profession of farming there more respectable than in England. Scotland also has set the example, not only in improved modes of culture, and in implements and machines; but in the more expensive department of the farm house and offices, numerous examples of which may be there found, both commodious in plan and disposition (figs. 114. and 115.), and elegant in elevation, (fig. 116.) The laying out of the fields of farins, the roads, 116

000

fences, and water-courses, and especially the management of hedges, has been greatly improved; and the breed of working horses (fig. 117.) cannot be equalled in any other country for strength, activity,

117

3

progress in England, and also that the cottages of the laboring classes (fig. 118.) are in general more comfortable and neat in the latter country, and their gardens are also better cultivated. But the system of paying farm servants in kind, or chiefly so, almost peculiar to Scotland, far more than counterbalances every advantage which the English cottager at present possesses. We shall describe the practice at length in our survey of the agriculture of East Lothian, in the statistical department of this work. (See Part IV. Book I. Chap. 2. Sect. 3., and Index.

present time.

781. The literature of English agriculture from the revolution is rich in excellent works. We have already, in detailing the professional improvements, noticed the writings of Mortimer and Tull. To these we now add the numerous works of Bradley, which appeared from 1717 to his death in 1732. They are all compilations, but have been of very considerable service in spreading a knowledge of culture, and a taste for rural improvement. Stephen Switzer, a seedsman in London, in 1729; Dr. Blackwell, in 1741; and Hitt, a few years afterwards, published tracts recommending the burning of clay as manure, in the manner recently done by Governor Beatson, of Suffolk; Craig, of Cally in Kircudbrightshire, and some others. Lisle's useful Observations on Husbandry, were published in 1757; Stillingfleet's Tracts, in which he shows the importance of a selection of grasses for laying down lands, in 1759; and the excellent

Essays of Harte, canon of Windsor, in 1764. The celebrated Arthur Young's first publication on agriculture, entitled, The Farmer's Letters to the People of England, &c. appeared in 1767; and was followed by a great variety of excellent works, including the Tour in France, and the Annals of Agriculture, till his pamphlet on the utility of the Board of Agriculture, in 1810. Marshall's numerous and most superior agricultural works commenced with his Minutes of, Agriculture, published in 1787, and ended with his Review of the Agricultural Reports, in 1816. The last works we shall mention are those of Dr. R. W. Dickson, whose Practical Agriculture appeared in two quarto volumes, in 1806, and may be considered as giving a complete view of the present state of agriculture at the time. Other works have appeared subsequently. In this sketch a great number of useful and ingenious authors are necessarily omitted; but they will all be found in their places in the Literature of British Agriculture, given in the Fourth Part of this work.

782. The Scottish writers on agriculture in that country confirm our view of the low state of the art in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The first work, written by James Donaldson, was printed in 1697, under the title of Husbandry Anatomised; or, an Enquiry into the present Manner of Teiling and Manuring the Ground in Scotland. It appears from this treatise that the state of the art was not more advanced at that time in North Britain, than it had been in England in the time of Fitzherbert. Farms were divided into infield and outfield; corn crops followed one another, without the intervention of fallow, cultivated herbage, or turnips, though something is said about fallowing the outfield; enclosures were very rare; the tenantry had not begun to emerge from a state of great poverty and depression; and the wages of labor, compared with the price of corn, were much lower than at present; though that price, at least in ordinary years, must appear extremely moderate in our times. Leases for a term of years, however, were not uncommon; but the want of capital rendered it impossible for the tenantry to attempt any spirited improvements.

783. The Countryman's Rudiments; or, an Advice to the Farmers in East Lothian, how to labor and improve their grounds, said to have been written by Lord Belhaven, about the time of the union, and reprinted in 1723, is the next work on the husbandry of Scotland. In this we have a deplorable picture of the state of agriculture, in what is now the most highly improved county in Scotland. His lordship begins with a very high encomium on his own performance. "I dare be bold to say, there never was such a good, easy method of husbandry as this, so succinct, extensive, and methodical in all its parts, published before." And he bespeaks the favor of those to whom he addresses himself, by adding, "neither shall I affright you with hedging, ditching, marling, chalking, paring and burning, draining, watering, and such like, which are all very good improvements indeed, and very agreeable with the soil and situation of East Lothian; but I know ye cannot bear as yet such a crowd of improvements, this being only intended to initiate you in the true method and principles of husbandry." The farm lands in East Lothian, as in other districts, were divided into infield and outfield, the former of which got all the dung. "The infield, where wheat is sown, is generally divided by the tenant into four divisions or breaks, as they call them, viz. one of wheat, one of barley, one of peas, and one of oats; so that the wheat is sowed after the pease, the barley after the wheat, and the oats after the barley. The outfield land is ordinarily made use of promiscuously for feeding their cows, horses, sheep, and oxen: it is also dunged by their sheep, who lay in earthen folds; and sometimes, when they have much of it, they fauch or fallow part of it yearly." Under this management, the produce seems to have been three times the seed;" "and yet," says his lordship, "if in East Lothian they did not get a higher stubble than in other places of the kingdom, their grounds would be in a much worse condition than at present they are, though bad enough. A good crop of corn makes a good stubble, and a good stubble is the equallest mucking that is." Among the advantages of enclosures, he observes, "you will gain much more labor from your servants, a great part of whose time was taken up in gathering thistles, and other garbage, for their horses to feed upon in their stables; and thereby the great trampling and pulling up, and other destruction of the corns, while they are yet tender, will be prevented. Potatoes and turnips are recommended to be sown in the yard (kitchen-garden). Clover does not seem to have been known. Rents were paid in corn; and, for the largest farm, which he thinks should employ no more than two ploughs, the rent was "about six chalders of victual, when the ground is very good, and four in that which is not so good. But I am most fully convinced, they should take long leases or tacks, that they may not be straitened with time in the improvement of their rooms (farms); and this is profitable both for master and tenant."

7. Maxwell's Select Transactions of the Society of Improvers of the knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland, was published in 1743, (see 775.) and his Practical Husbandman, in 1757, including an Essay on the Husbandry of Scotland. In the latter he lays it down as a rule, that it is bad husbandry to take two trops of grain successively, which marks a considerable progress in the knowledge of modern culture;

though he adds, that in Scotland, the best husbandmen after a fallow take a crop of wheat; after the wheat, pease, then barley, and then oats; and after that they fallow again. The want of enclosures was still a matter of complaint. The ground continued to be cropped so long as it produced two seeds for one; the best farmers were contented with four seeds for one, which was more than the general produce.

785. In 1765, a treatise on agriculture was published by the Rev. Adam Dickson, minister of Dunse, in Berwickshire, which is decidedly the best work on tillage which has appeared in the English language, and was and still is held in universal esteem among the practical farmers of Scotland.

786. In 1777, Lord Kaimes published The Gentleman Farmer, being an attempt to improve agriculture by subjecting it to the test of rational principles. His lordship was a native of Berwickshire; and had been accustomed to farm in that country for several years, and afterwards at Blair Drummond, near Stirling. This work was in part a compilation and in part the result of his observation; and was of essential service to the cause of agriculture in Scotland.

787. In 1778, appeared Wight's Present State of Husbandry in Scotland. This is a valuable work; but the volumes not appearing but at intervals of some years, it was of less benefit than might have been expected.

788. In 1783, Dr. Anderson published his Essays relating to agriculture and rural affairs a work of science and ingenuity, which did much good both in Scotland and England.

789. In 1800 appeared The Farmer's Magazine; a quarterly work, exclusively devoted to agriculture and rural affairs; and which has done more to enlighten both the proprietory and tenantry of Scotland than any other book which has appeared. It was at first conducted jointly by Robert Brown, farmer of Markle; and Robert Somerville, M. D. of Haddington. Afterwards, on Dr. Somerville's death, by Brown alone; and subsequently, on the latter gentleman's declining it, by Cleghorn, W. S., one of the most scientific agriculturists of Scotland. The frequent recurrence that will be made to The Farmer's Magazine in the course of this work, will shew the high value which we set on it. The Husbandry of Scotland is the next work deserving of notice in this sketch of Scottish authors, published by Sir John Sinclair in 1810; and which may very properly complete the series, as it fulfils in an able and complete manner what the title possesses.

790. The rapid progress of agriculture in Britain is shown by nothing more clearly than the great number of societies that have been lately formed; one or more in almost every county, for the diffusion of knowledge, and the encouragement of correct operations, and beneficial discoveries. Among these, the Bath and West of England Society, established in 1777, and the Highland Society of Scotland, in 1784, hold a conspicuous rank, and the establishment of the Board of Agriculture, in 1793, ought to form a new era in the history of the agriculture and rural economy of Britain.

791. A professorship of agriculture was established in the university of Edinburgh, in 1790, and the professor, Dr. Andrew Coventry, is well known as a man of superior qualifications for fulfilling its duties.

792. Professorships of agriculture, and even of horticulture, or rather of culture in general, are said to be partly provided for, and partly in contemplation, both in Oxford and Cambridge.

793. The reports of the different counties, many of them surveyed a second time, and now reprinted, according to an uniform plan, have been followed by the General Report of the Agricultural State and Political Circumstances of Scotland; and a similar work for England was understood to be in the contemplation of the board. But the continuation of that institution was deemed unnecessary by parliament; and its annual vote for its support being withdrawn, it ceased to exist in 1819.

794. The Code of Agriculture, published in 1819, by Sir John Sinclair, may be considered as giving a succinct view of the most improved practices of British husbandry as actually practised by professional farmers. It is a work which has already been translated into several foreign languages, and passed through more than one edition in this country.

SUBSECT. 3. Of the Rise, Progress, and present State of Agriculture in Ireland.

795. Of the agriculture of Ireland very little is known up to a recent period. With a soil singularly prolific in pasture, and rather humid for the easy management of grain, it is probable that sheep and cattle would be the chief rural products for many centuries. In the twelfth century and earlier, various religious establishments were founded, and then it is most probable tillage on something like the Roman mode of culture would be introduced. The monks, says O'Connor, fixed their habitations in deserts which they cultivated with their own hands, and rendered them the most delightful spots in the kingdom. 796. During the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, the English were obliged to suppress the numerous rebellions of their Irish subjects by war, and the forfeited estates

of the rebels would in part be divided among the troops. This might end in introducing some agricultural improvements; but there is no evidence that such was effected before the time of Elizabeth, when the enormous demesnes of the Earl of Desmond were forfeited, and divided amongst a number of English undertakers, as they were called, who entered into a stipulation to plant a certain number of English families on their estates, in proportion to the number of acres. Among others who received portions were, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Spenser, the poet. The former is said to have then introduced the potatoe. 797. The reign of James I. was one of comparative tranquillity for Ireland: the power of the judges, and of the English government, was extensively fixed; the Irish laws and customs were abolished, and the English laws were established in all cases without exception, through the whole island. Numerous colonies were also sent from England and Scotland, especially the latter, to occupy the forfeited estates; and seven northern counties were wholly allotted to undertakers. This was called the "plantation of Ulster," and was attended by the introduction of an improved agriculture, and by the linen manufacture, which is still carried on by the descendants of the first colonists in the same counties.

798. The city of London participated in this distribution of land, the corporation having accepted of large grants in the county of Derry. They engaged to expend 20,000. on the plantation; to build the cities of Derry and Colerain, and at the same time stipulated for such privileges as might make their settlement convenient and respectable. Under a pretence of protecting this infant settlement, or perhaps with a view of raising money, the king instituted the order of Irish baronets, or knights of Ulster ; from each of whom, as was done in Scotland with respect to the knights of Nova Scotia, he exacted a certain sum, as the price of the dignity conferred. (Wakefield.)

799. Of the husbandry of Londonderry, a curious account was published about a century ago, by the archbishop of Dublin. He states that there was little wheat grown, and that of very inferior quality; the soil being considered as unsuitable to its production. Potatoes remained three or four years in the ground, reproducing a crop, which at the best was a very deficient one. Lime was procured by burning sea shells. The application of them in an unburnt state arose from accident. A poor curate, destitute of the means for burning the sea shells which he had collected, more with a view to remove an evidence of his poverty, than in any hope of benefit, spread them on his ground. The success which attended the experiment occasioned surprise, and ensured a rapid and general adoption of the practice. (Wakefield.) The improvements made since the period of which the Archbishop treats, Curwen remarks, are undoubtedly very considerable: and whilst we smile at the very subordinate state of agriculture at that time, may we not on reasonable ground expect that equal progress will at least be made in this century as in the last? (Letters on Ireland, vol. ii. p. 246.)

800. A considerable impulse was given to the agriculture of Ireland after the rebellion of 1641, which was quelled by Cromwell, as commander of the parliamentary army in 1652. Most of the officers of this army were yeomen, or the sons of English country gentlemen; and they took pleasure in instructing the natives in the agricultural practices to which they were accustomed at home. Afterwards, when Cromwell assumed the protectorship, he made numerous grants to his soldiers, many of whom settled in Ireland; and their descendants have become men of consideration in the country. Happily these grants were confirmed at the restoration. Some account of the state of culture in that country at this time, and of the improvements which it was deemed desirable to introduce, will be found in Blythe's Improver Improved. Blythe was a colonel in the parliamentary army.

801. The establishment of the Dublin Society in 1749, gave the next stimulus to agriculture and general industry in Ireland. The origin of the Dublin Society may be dated from 1791, when a number of gentlemen, at the head of whom was Prior of Rathdowney, Queen's county, associated themselves together for the purpose of improving the agriculture and husbandry of their country. In 1749, Prior, through the interest of the then lord lieutenant, procured a grant of 10,000l. per annum, for the better promotion of its views. Miss Plumtree considers this the first association ever formed in the British dominions expressly for such purposes; but the Edinburgh Agricultural Society, as we have seen (775.), was founded in 1723.

802. Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland was published in 1780, and probably did more good than even the Dublin Society. In this work he pointed out the folly of the bounty on the inland carriage of corn. His recommendation on this subject was adopted; and according to Wakefield, "from that hour may be dated the commencement of extended tillage in Ireland." (Wakefield's Statistical Account, and Curwen's Letters.)

03. The present state of the agriculture of Ireland is given with great clearness and ability in the supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica; and from that source we have selected the following condensed account:

804. The climate of Ireland is considerably more mild than that of England, and the southern and western part of the island greatly more so than the northern. The difference in this respect, indeed, is greater than can be explained by the difference of latitude; and is probably owing to the immediate vicinity of the Western ocean. On the mountains of Kerry, and in Bantry Bay, the arbutus and some other shrubs grow in great luxuriance, which are not to be met with again till the traveller reaches the Alps of Italy. The snow in these parts of the island seldom lies for any time, and frost hardly ever continues beyond a few days, and while it lasts it is by no means intense. The mildness and humidity of the atmosphere produce a luxuriance and rapidity of growth in vegetation, to which no other part of the empire can afford any parallel; and this appears in the most remarkable manner in the ivy and other evergreens, with which the kingdom abounds. These are not only much more plentiful, but far more luxuriant, and of much quicker growth, than in the most favored parts of Great Britain. To those who are accustomed to the dry weather of this island, the continued rains of the south and west of Ireland are extremely disagreeable: but it is to this peculiarity in their climate, that the Irish have to attribute the richness of their pasturage, an advantage which, coupled with the remarkable dryness and friability of the soil, points, in an unequivocal manner, to a rotation of crops, in which grazing should occupy a principal place.

805. The territorial surface of Ireland affords a pleasing variety, consisting in some parts of rich and fertile plains, in others of little hills and acclivities which succeed one another in frequent succession. The most elevated ground is to be found in the bog of Allan. Its height above the sea does not exceed 270 feet, yet, from this ridge, the waters of the river run to the different seas. This elevated ground is connected with the principal mountains of Ireland, diverging in the north from the hills of Tyrone, and leading in the south to those of Sleeve Bloom and the Galtees. The chains of mountains are neither numerous nor considerable; the most remarkable are, the Kerry mountains, those of Wicklow, the Sleeve Bloom chain between the King's and Queen's county, and the mountains of Mourne, in the south of the province of Ulster.

806. The soil of Ireland is, generally speaking, a fertile loam, with a rocky substratum; although there are many exceptions to this description, and many varieties. Generally speaking, it is rather shallow; to which cause the frequent appearance of rocks near the surface, or at no considerable depth, is to be attributed. It possesses a much greater proportion of fertile land, in proportion to its extent, than either England or Scotland. Not only is the island blessed with this extent of cultivateable ground, but it is almost all of such a quality as to yield luxuriant crops, with little or no cultivation. Sand does not exist except on the sea shore. Tenacious clay is unknown, at least near the surface. Great part of the land of Ireland throws up a luxuriant herbage, without any depth of soil, or any skill on the part of the husbandman. The county of Meath, in particular, is distinguished by the richness and fertility of its soil; and, in Limerick and Tipperary, there is a dark, friable sandy loam, which, if preserved in a clean state, will yield crops of corn several years in succession. It is equally well adapted for grazing as for arable crops, and seldom experiences either a winter too wet, or a summer too dry. The vales in many of the bleakest parts of the kingdom, as Donegal and Tyrone, are remarkable for their richness of soil and luxuriance of vegetation, which may be often accounted for by the deposition of the calcareous soil, washed down by the rains of winter, which spreads the richest manure over the soil below, without subjecting the farmer to any labor. (Wakefield, i. 79, 80.)

807. The bogs, or peat mosses, of Ireland, form a remarkable feature of the country, and have been proved by the parliamentary commissioners to be of great extent. They estimate the whole bogs of the kingdom at 2,330,000 acres, English. These bogs, for the most part, lie together. In form, they resemble a great broad belt, drawn across the centre of Ireland, with its narrowest end nearest to the capital, and gradually extending in breadth as it approaches the Western Ocean. The bog of Allan is not one contiguous morass, but this name is indiscriminately applied to a great number of bogs, detached from each other, and often divided by ridges of dry country. These bogs are not, in general, level, but most commonly of an uneven surface, swelling into hills, and divided by vallies, which afford the greatest facility to their being drained and improved. In many places, particularly in the district of Allan, the rivulets which these inequalities of surface produce, have worn their channels through the substance of the bog down to the clay, or limestone gravel beneath; dividing the bog into distinct masses, and presenting, in themselves, the most proper situations for the main drains, and which, with the assistance of art, may be rendered effectual for that purpose.

808. The commissioners employed by government to report on the bogs of Ireland, found three distinct growths of timber immersed below three distinct strata of bog. The timber was perfectly sound, though deprived of its bark, which has communicated its antiputrescent quality to the water, and of course has preserved every thing imbedded in the mass; though, as Miss Plumtree remarks, without "any thing like a process of tanning ever taking place." The bogs of Ireland are never on low ground, and have therefore evidently originated from the decay of woody tracts. (Plumtrec's Residence in Ireland.)