park; but not turning to great account with either, the culture of that grafs hitherto has been little attended to. Several tried the drilling of wheat and barley, and after perfevering for fome The old practice of fowing wheat after where the ground had been fo much pul- About the year 1760, the face of the country was greatly altered, much grouud was inclosed, drained, and laid down with grafs feeds that never had been cultivated before. The beneficial effects of fown grafs was confpicuoufly obvious; the farm horfes were enabled to tried for procuring a more active kind do more work, cows gave more milk, of horfes, and, after many experiments, the cattle reared were increafed in fize, the plain weft country, or Clydesdale land laid down for pasture produced breed, are esteemed the most tractable, more the first year, than when left out, and the best for flow heavy work: and, or ley, according to the old practice, it for milk cows, croffes with the Alderdid in four or five, and when fown for ney and Guernsey, feem to prevail more hay after being two years cut, produced than any other, and to fucceed better. crops of corn fuperior to what it would They have, in general, two great quali have done when laid down. St Foin ties: ift, That of not going foon yeld; and Lucern were sown by feveral. The and 2dly, Giving richer milk and butfirst was foon given up, the other was ter The breed, when firft imported, long perfevered in by Lord Napier at Merchifton, as it had been fome years before by Lord Drumore at Drumore Rag-fauch is ground ploughed up, ar and prepared for wheat, that has been two years in grafs, and generally gets three furrows, but fometimes requires a fourth, 72 5x had a delicate, and rather diminutive appearance. But, by the fecond or third generation, they became as hardy and plump in the figure, as any kind whatever. I have had of them, by crolling, that for eight or nine years. were never yeld, and always Laughter. fat; * fat; when other kinds, in the fame Edinburgh dung, and where wheat crops ftall, were but indifferent very thrive. About five years ago, feveral of the farmers, near the town, had pretty large fields of them, and a good many was fold fo high as feven pounds per acre; but finding the fale limited, and fome left on hand, difcouraged raifing them to fo great extent, till last winter, that the high price of fodder, and diftillation going on flowly, brought a great demand, and led to the fowing greater quantities laft fummer than ever, and the causes for encreafing the demand continuing, they fell 20s. per acre higher than last year, the demand in this way is however very limited. The cow-keepers, and butchers of Edinburgh, never have, in one year, confumed a hundred acres ; and it cannot be counted upon as a staple article to the farmers in general, in this part of the county, though on deaf dry land, the fowing turnip and a crop of barley after, is found to be more profitable than fowing wheat. About twelve or fourteen years ago, two horfe ploughs became very common. They had frequently, for fix or feven years before that, been ufed for ploughing light land, feed-furrowing, fammer fallow, barley land, and potatoes; but being then only, in most inftances, a reduction of the old Scottish plough, with a long fock and coulter, and not executing the work in ftiff, or very firm land, fo effectually as it ought, made two horfes be confidered inadequate to the ploughing of land properly, until the principles of the Rotheram plough was conftructed, (which had been introduced into this county thirty years before, for the purpose of ploughing up fprooty meadow grounds,) came to be better known; and from practice, the power of two horses is fo much better underflood, that now a greater number are never to be seen in a plough, but in extraordinary cafes. Green kail and cabbages were planted in the fields, about ten years ago, near the town, to the extent of an acre or two on a farm, and fold well at the time diftillation was ftopt and fodder high; but as foon as diftilleries were then again fet a-going, the demand failed, and fuch crops were a good deal given up, fo that for fome time, few have been planted but for the farm cows; and for that purpose, cabbage, yams, and red curl'd kail, are found of the utmoft advantage for winter and fpring food. No green crop whatever, affords more fuftenance than a crop of green kail, on rich ground, in the end of April and beginning of May. The raifing of turnips has been a good deal revived of late years; but is no great object to the farmers in general, where the ground can be kept fich with A cross between the Galloway and Alderney, would, probably, make a good breed. The crofs that turned out fo well with me, was with a good kind of cows, procured from the cows of this county, and the fhort horned kind. Barley is now frequently fown in this part of the county at the fame time as oats; and where the ground has been well prepared, turns out fully better than that which is fown later. The grain never fails to be of a better quality. The errors that seem to prevail most among the farmers in this district, is an over propenfity for crops of wheat, and a great reluctancy to lofe a crop, when the land requires more work than can be given to a drilled one; which causes wheat often to be fown, where either oats or barley would have been more profitable, and beans drilled, where, had the ground been fummer fallowed, the crop of wheat after, would have been worth a great deal more than both the beans and wheat, and the land left in a high state of cultivation. The other arable lands in this county, where manure cannot be procured for keeping them all under tillage, recourfe is had to pafturing apart, and winter feeding cattle, and fheep; and, in this fituation, inclofing is of the utmost confequence, not only by affording fhel ter, * ter, but as it gives cattle, feeding at their ease, greatly the advantage over thofe driven about by a herd. The old practice of leaving out the land that was intended to reft, without fowing grafs feeds, is almost given up. Some lay down what is intended to be paftured, very properly, before it is too much exhaufted, and fow fuch grafs feeds as is calculated for procuring a close fward; but for the greateft part, they are reluctant to lay land down for pafture to reft, until it has been rather feverely cropt, and, in the western part of this county, little elfe is fown but rye grafs with a view to thrash for feed. A fe vere mode of cropping, as all is carried off the ground in the end. Pafture ground, left in this ftate, must continue long to be much the better of lying ley. How lowly is it enriched by all the cattle it feeds, and if it be a heavy thin foil, it derives as little benefit from the atmosphere. With a clofe fward of grafs, the ground not only grows fafter rich, from the greater quantity of pafture it yields, and the manure it confequently receives, but by being rich, and clofe in the fward, the foil is prepared to receive and abforb a great part of those rains that otherwife would run off, and carry away useful fubftances more than they bring. A great many turnips are now raised, and good crops to be feen, fed off in various ways, fometimes with fheep, but moftly with black cattle, for obtaining the command of a greater increafe of manure, and not a few are confumed by milk cows, and they are a great acquifition for that purpofe: dairies, upon a pretty large fcale, have of late been a dopted by feveral, with what fuccefs I cannot fay; but as an appendage to a farm, as far as my obfervation and experience has gone, a few milk cows, well attended to, have always proved advantageous. The acquifition now, of having green meat through the winter and fpring, for milk cows and young flocks, mud be great, as thus they may be made of double value, and the quan tity of dung greatly increafed, when well fed and littered with ftraw, compared to their fituation formerly, when they had nothing to eat but ftraw, and not a ftalk to lie on. It is remarked, that the pasture grafs in this county, in general, is kept thorter than in moft others; a lofs fo obvious, that it is furprising it fhould be perfevered in. Three fheep or cattle well fed, will yield more profit than five half fed, and the uneaten grafs never lost. Where lands depend on pafture, for producing crops of corn, over-cropping ought never to take place, and more attention ought to be paid for procuring a good fward, than for raifing a crop of hay. Plenty of white clover and rib grafs is found to be the most effectual for that purpose. Too much red clover is apt to deftroy other feeds; and yellow clover is not much to be depended on, thriving only in fome grounds, and even in these appearing one year, but not another, and, in this county, remaining permanent only in particular foils. Free gravelly foils are those where it continues longest, nor is cattle fond of it. There is another fituation of arable land in the higher parts of this county,. that differs a good deal from the former, confifting of a fall part called Croft, that, for time immemorial, has had laid on it all the dung made on the farm; and the remainder, Outfield, chief ly plain grounds, the most of which have been ploughed. Great part of these, 30 or 40 years ago, were all covered with heath, or a coarfe grafs, that afforded little pafture. When firft limed and broke up, this foil often produced good crops of oats for a few years, but in general was kept in tillage, while it yielded what was worth the fowing for; and though no grafs feeds were fown, as indeed it could have been of no fervice, the fward was fomewhat mended, but still coarfe, thin, and of little real value. In many inftances they have undergone a fecond, fome a third and fourth breaking up, but the oftener, the produce produce becomes the lefs, except where folded. A fecond liming has feldom any effect. By all this additional cultivation, without manure, the ground is only more exhaufted, and when left again in grafs, the fward is nothing mended. A good deal of thefe fields are now inclofed, and fome of them derive great advantage from being fo; but in many inftances, little benefit is reapt but the trifling shelter that is obtained from illthriven hedges; it being impoffible, on fome of thefe grounds, to rear them to be proper fences, befides not having water for the ftock to drink. There are hundreds of acres in the high parts of the county, without a drop of water for months. will anfwer, and with thefe to keep on, for two or three months, the few halffed cattle they are accustomed to fell off in autumn, the farm cows and young stock, would all be of double value. If fed plentifully through the winter and fpring, compared with what they are, when getting nothing but a little ftraw through the night, and chill'd through the day, in cold and rainy weather, picking a scanty fubfiftence, an increafe of manure would be got of courfe; and where thefe green crops grew, to fow in with the firft crop of corn, 6 lb. of white clover, and "the` fame quantity of rib grafs with rye grafs, a little red clover, and taking never more than one crop of hay, double the pafture will thus be produced, than if Shelter, in thefe extenfive open no other feeds were fown but rye grafs grounds, would be of the utmost im- and clover, and the ground, of course, portance; and though hedges cannot will be fooner fit for breaking up, and be raised to anfwer that end, ftripes of will produce every crop more abundantplanting, in crofs directions, might; ly: and when part of the outfield is as trees are to be found growing much broken up, after folding or liming, in higher than many of these grounds, and place of doing fo with detached fields, there are many inftances of various kinds or parts of a field, and cropping the of trees thriving where thorns do not. ground till quite exhaufted, would it There is little profpect, that any con- not be much better to fold or lime a fiderable part of thofe lands, can foon part nearest the infield, and after the be made to produce a better fward of firft crop to prepare the ground and fow grafs; yet great part of them, in time, turnips? If a little dung could be fparfurely might. The heavinefs and wet- ed, it would be of great importance, nefs of the foil, the want of manure, not only for encreafing the quantity of (having little more than is fufficient for grafs, but for improving the quality; the old croft-land, and lime being found as every effort ought to be made that to operate very poorly, in most places, tends to procure an encrease of that vawhen repeated,) the latenefs of the luable article. Compoft dunghills fhould harveft, and early winters, which make be made, where ftuff can be got for the accefs to winter crops very difficult, the purpose, and as little of the urine are all against winter feeding being car- of the cattle loft as poffible; and tho ried to the fame extent, as where land dung will not, bear the expence of being lies in a better climate, and is of a dry carried to the diftance of eight, nine, er and freer nature. Yet there cannot or ten miles, horn fhavings and woolen be the fmalleft doubt, but that fome rags will. By attention to procure what thing more might be done than is. In is to be got of thefe, with a proper applace of laying all the dung on the bar- plication of the urine, either in comport ley crops, and lit fpots of wheat, dunghills, or otherwife, a part of thefe were it to be made ufe of for raifing unproductive lands might be prepared green crops, that admit of the ground for growing turnips, and afterwards being thoroughly wrought, as turnips, laid down with white clover, rib and green kail, and yams, where the foil rye grafs feeds, not to be cut nor fuf fered fered to be potched the first year, that would ever after have a fward of grafs very different from what it was, and continue to be good pafture-ground. The sheep walks, in this county, vary as much as the arable lands. Some are connected with arable land; upon fome of which turnips are raised for feeding the sheep, but not yet to great extent; few hitherto have been fattened off turnip fields in this county, though there are many farms well-fuited to the raifing of turnips, where large flocks of Sheep are kept; thofe at a diftance have not yet extended much into the practice, and those who have fheep walks near Edinburgh, find from thence a better market, referving, in general, only a few for the fpring, which, with the fown grafs, feed off the early lambs; and if the grafs is not kept too bare, the crop of hay is not much hurt. There are many fheep walks that confift chiefly of hills and muirs, where there is little arable, in proportion to the large flocks that are kept, and where all the turnip that could be raised, would avail but little. Great part of these grounds produce heath, and a long benty grafs, that fupport the flocks throughout the winter feafon; which, on these grounds, are all of the black fac'd, coarfe wool'd kind; and whether the Cheviot breed would thrive there as well, has never been fairly tried: but that the breed of thefe grounds might be improved by a little more attention, is obvious, from the herd's flock always being fuperior to the master's; amongst fome of whom, and on pretty high grounds, croffes with the white faced kind are to be found equally good thriv ers with the others. To afcertain this point, is an object worthy of the attention of the British Wool Society. A fmall heathy hill farm, for the purpose, could not incur great expence. How inclofing is to affect population, depends upon the ufe that is made of the lands afterwards. If, in a proper manner, inclofing and pafturing is made fubfervient to tillage, more corn will be raifed than would have been otherwife; and of courfe inclosures are favourable to population. But if, after inclofing, the ground is all laid into grafs, and kept for grazing, fuch a fyftem muft unavoidably depopulate. One farmer, with a herd or two, can make all that is to be made of a poffeffion, that occupied the attention of two or three farmers, many labouring fervants, and their families, and perhaps a carpenter or wright, a fmith, befides haymakers, reapers, and all the various forts of tradesmen and others to whom they gave employment. The effects of the little additional employment given during the time of inclofing, dreffing the ground, and laying it down with grafs feeds, are foon over, and in a few years, extenfive fields, that gave occupation and food to numbers, appear almost uninhabited. Light will this country be in the scale of nations, if our lands come to be chiefly occupied by fhepherds, and if our ma nufacturers have to depend upon a foreign land for the bread they are to eat, and on their own population alone, for a supply of hands to carry on their bufinefs. ON THE ELECTRICITY OF FLAME. SOME of the experiments on this fubject are fo eafy, and at the fame time fo curious, that we are perfuaded a great number of our readers will amufe themselves by repeating them. M. Hemmer had obferved the appearances here defcribed as early as 1776, and he published a fhort notice of them in 1778% VOL. LVIII. When a wax candle, about nine lines in diameter, has been burning for fome time, if any particles of the charred wick fall into the melted wax, they may be obferved to haften rapidly toward the flame, into which they almost rife, and then move in a contrary direction with equal fpeed, as far as the 3 U margia |