Chapter XLVII

_Progress of Agriculture in the Eighteenth
and Nineteenth Centuries._

IN the early part of the eighteenth century agriculture was in a wretchedly backward state. The whole area under cultivation was comparatively small; even in the Lothians and the southern counties of the kingdom, only patches of what was called “infield” were under tillage. Oats and barley were the chief crops; wheat as yet was little raised; clover and rye-grass, potatoes and turnips, were hardly then introduced. The use of manure was little understood; loads were mostly all carried on horseback, and there was no cattle-feeding as now understood. The whole of the agricultural and farming implements were of the most primitive and rude description. The ploughs were made of wood, and long after this period timber-ploughs were used in some parts of Scotland; in fact, I have seen them working. The plough-wright made the body of the implement; it was then sent to the smith, who fitted it with two or three pieces of iron. The farm-steadings were in general little better than a collection of huts.

James Meikle, a country wright of Wester Keith, having learned the art of winnowing corn with a machine, and of making barley with the use of a mill, in Holland, brought to Scotland a pair of fanners, and the iron work of a barley-mill. About the year 1720, the barley-mill and the winnowing machine were set up at Saltoun. But the people were slow in adopting these machines in farming work. Andrew Meikle, a son of James Meikle, was an ingenious mechanic; and he settled at Houston Mill, in East Lothian, where he carried on the several occupations of a small farmer, a miller, and a mill-wright. He directed his attention to the improvement of agricultural machinery, especially to that connected with the thrashing, winnowing, dressing, and grinding of grain. He often travelled through the counties of Edinburgh and Berwick to repair and fit up mills. But his most important achievement was the invention of the thrashing-machine. Many attempts had been made before his time to invent a machine for thrashing corn, but without effect. After many years of thinking and planning, Meikle at last succeeded in perfecting his thrashing-machine, to which he joined solid fluted feeding-rollers, and afterwards a machine for shaking the straw, fanners for winnowing the corn, and other improvements.

He erected his first thrashing machine on the new principle in 1787, for Mr. Stein of Kilbeggie, in the county of Clackmannan; but the novelty of the experiment, and the doubts of the efficacy of the machine, induced Mr. Stein to impose the condition that if it did not answer the intended purpose, Meikle was not to receive any payment for it. This thrashing-machine, which was driven by waterpower, proved highly satisfactory, and long continued in good working order. The second machine, which he erected the same year, was for Mr. Rennie, at Phantassie; and he had so perfected it that it could be driven by water, wind, or horses, and this one was worked by the latter power. In 1788, Meikle took out a patent for his invention; but it is sad to record that he did not reap those pecuniary advantages from his invention which a more bold and self-assertive man would have done. “Pirates fell upon him from all sides and deprived him of the fruits of his ingenuity, even denying him any originality whatever. Mr. Smeaton (the famous engineer) knew Meikle intimately, and frequently met him in consultation respecting the arrangements of the Dalry Mills, near Edinburgh, and other works; and he was accustomed to say of him, that if he had possessed but one-half the address of other people, he would have rivalled all his contemporaries, and stood forth as one of the first mechanical engineers in the kingdom.”¹

¹ Smiles’ _Lives of the Engineers_, Volume II., pages 105‒114.

The thrashing-machine was one of the greatest benefits ever conferred upon the husbandman: it effected a vast saving of corn and of labour. “It is calculated to have effected a saving, as compared with the flail, of one hundredth part of the whole corn thrashed, or equal to a value of not less than two millions sterling, in Great Britain alone.” Within twenty years after the date of Meikle’s patent, upwards of three hundred thrashing-mills were erected in East Lothian alone, at an estimated cost of about forty thousand pounds; and soon after, it was generally adopted in England and throughout the civilised world.

Meikle also introduced improvements in working the sails of windmills, and important improvements in water-wheels, which on one occasion proved effectual in carrying out a remarkable undertaking in Perthshire. This was the washing away into the river Forth of about two thousand acres of peat moss, and thus laying bare an equal surface of arable land. The moss of Kincardine was a level swamp of about four miles long and two broad; the moss was seven feet in depth upon a bottom of clay, and lay between the rivers Forth and Teith. In 1766, Lord Kames came into possession of the Blair-Drummond estate, to which this moss belonged, and he resolved if possible to improve it. His plan was to wash away the entire moss into the Forth, and to effect this the water of the Teith was used; accordingly, the stream was turned in upon the moss and men employed to cut the stuff for the current to carry away. But the process was rather slow, and when his lordship died in 1783, a thousand acres still remained, which his son, Mr. Home Drummond, determined to remove by a more rapid process. He consulted several engineers, and Mr. Whitworth recommended a plan; but George Meikle, a millwright at Alloa, the son of Andrew, proposed another, the invention of his father; and Whitworth at once acknowledged its superiority to his own, and urged Mr. Drummond to adopt it. “The invention consisted of a newly-contrived wheel, twenty-eight feet in diameter and ten feet broad, for raising water in a simple, economical, and powerful manner, at the rate of from forty to sixty hogsheads a minute; and it was necessary so to raise it about seventeen feet, in order to reach the higher parts of the land. The machinery on being erected was set to work, and with such good results that in the course of a very few years the four miles of barren moss were completely washed away, and the district was shortly after covered with thriving farmsteads, as it remains to this day.”¹

¹ Tytler’s _Life of Lord Kames_, Volume II., pages 27‒30;
Smiles’ _Lives of the Engineers_, Volume II., pages 115‒116.
Andrew Meikle was the first master who trained John Rennie,
the well-known Scotch engineer.

Other requisite agricultural implements were gradually improved and adopted. In the department of ploughs and other implements used in land tillage, the Sellars of Huntly, in Aberdeenshire, were among the first in Scotland who made and introduced an effective and superior class of such implements, which have contributed much to the improvement of the tillage of the soil in the present century. The ploughs of this firm (the drill-plough) effected a saving of labour, and their single-furrow ploughs when worked by capable men produced a quality of work as yet unsurpassed in any quarter of the globe.

In the present century all kinds of agricultural implements have been brought to great perfection; and within my own recollection a revolution has been effected in agricultural machines. The water and horse-power thrashing-mills were a great improvement, and in the early part of this century a vast number of them were erected throughout the north and west of Scotland. Now there are not only stationary thrashing-mills driven by steam, but also locomotive steam thrashing-machines which can travel from end to end of the country, and operate wherever they are required. While, instead of sowing grain and other seeds with the hand, there are now various kinds of sowing-machines; and instead of cutting with the hand-hook or scythe as of old, there are cutting-machines and reaping-machines in endless variety. Instead of the wooden plough, with its point of iron, which only scratched the soil, although it was drawn by twelve oxen, there are many kinds of iron ploughs drawn by horses, and also steam ploughs. Such contrasts show the advance which has been attained.

The enclosing of waste lands for pasture was begun in the district of Galloway about 1720, by the cattle-dealers, who bought and pastured live stock which they drove to the English markets. In course of time their example was followed by some of the landholders in different parts of the country. The Earl of Haddington, Cockburn of Ormiston in East Lothian, the Earls of Stair and Eglinton in Ayrshire, and others became improvers of husbandry upon their estates. In 1733, they formed the plan of a Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture, and in a short time three hundred of the principal landowners in Scotland joined it. This society continued in vigour for twenty years, and contributed to diffuse a spirit of improvement over a considerable part of the country.¹ It is reported that Cockburn was among the first landlords in Scotland who granted nineteen years’ leases to their tenants.

¹ “Infinite good was done by this society to their country,
particularly by receiving memorials, and answering queries,
concerning husbandry and manufactures; by their proposals
relative to the public funds, drawn up by a committee of
their number; by their application to the royal burghs for
their concurrence; by their joint application to parliament;
by the acts in consequence of that application, and by the
king’s patent following thereon, naming trustees for the
fisheries and manufactures, almost all chosen out of this
society. Before this society commenced, we seemed to have
been several centuries behind our neighbours in England;
now, I hope we are within less than one of what they are,
either with regard to husbandry or manufactures.” Maxwell’s
_Practical Husbandry_; Edinburgh, 1757. The appointment
of the Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of the
Fisheries, Arts and Manufactures, spoken of in the quotation,
arose from the Treaty of Union. In the 15th article it
was stipulated that a sum of money, termed the equivalent,
should be paid by England, and applied to public purposes
in Scotland; thus the duties of the Board were to administer
this fund.

At this time, however, a large part of the land in the best parts of the country was occupied by a number of small holders who shared the ground among them by alternate ridges; this custom of run-ridge possession was inconsistent with good farming, and retarded improvement. As clearer and wiser ideas of agriculture were gradually formed, this system decayed and died out, excepting in some remote parts of the Highlands, where it was practised till recently.

After the battle of Culloden, the forfeited estates were placed under the management of a Board of Commissioners, of whom Lord Kames was one; and his duty as a member of this Board gave him an opportunity of considering plans for the improvement of those large domains, of which they had the charge for the public benefit. The first step was to obtain a correct report of the actual position of those estates, the soils of the different farms, the modes of culture in use, the crops usually raised, the manures used, the prices of labour and provisions, and, in general, every kind of information which might tend to suggest the best modes of improving the lands. Mr. Andrew Wight of Ormiston, an active and intelligent man, was proposed by Lord Kames, and appointed by the Board to proceed under a set of instructions and make a survey. His reports were issued in 1773 and 1774, and they were deemed so satisfactory that the Commissioners adopted from them a number of wise regulations for the management of those estates, and carried out the most effective improvements of the lands.¹ With the view of extending those advantages to the whole country, they engaged Wight to continue his surveys and to draw up similar reports of the actual state of agriculture in every quarter of Scotland. The result was, the collection of a vast body of useful information, which was printed in six volumes, from 1778 to 1784, and contributed much to raise the spirit of improvement, which from this date has been continually progressive――insomuch that before the end of the century the state of agriculture in the Lowlands was completely changed, and the face of the country had assumed a new aspect.

¹ This Board was of course superseded when the forfeited
estates were restored in 1784.

But in the Highlands and Islands the changes which were effected with regard to the relation of the people to the land, in the latter part of the last century and the early part of this one, were of a questionable and less beneficial character; but I have elsewhere discussed this part of the subject, and deem it unnecessary to enlarge on it here.¹

¹ _Celtic Magazine_ for January, 1887.

The Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture in Scotland, formed in 1733, referred to in a preceding page, was the first Society of the kind in Britain. The Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland was instituted in 1784, and established by Royal Charter in 1887. It has thus had a continuous life of one hundred and twelve years; and has directed attention to the important matters of breeding cattle and horses, and stimulated the improvement of agriculture in many ways.¹ In the present century, agricultural societies and associations have been formed in every county and district in Scotland, and have attained a high stage of development. Their chief object is the improvement of live stock of every description, and also the improvement of all kinds of cereals which may be advantageously cultivated on farms, and all kinds of vegetables useful and profitable for animal and human food. That these societies have done incalculable good, and contributed greatly to the progress of civilisation in Scotland, cannot be questioned; because they have been instrumental in improving the quality and increasing the quantity of the prime necessaries of existence.

¹ The history of this society has been admirably written by
Dr. Ramsay, the editor of the _Banffshire Journal_, in a
work which was published in 1879.

In the present century one of the most remarkable changes in agriculture has been the extension of the cultivation of turnips. Prior to this century they were but little cultivated in Scotland: but when the modern method of feeding cattle for sale in the great centres of population began to be developed, it became necessary to put a larger portion of the cultivated land of the country annually under this crop. In the north-eastern counties of Scotland the most common modes of rotation of crops on farms are these:――(1) The farm is divided into five shifts or divisions, one of which is under turnips, excepting a small proportion of it usually under potatoes; (2) two out of the five divisions are under grain crops; and (3) the remaining two are under grass. Under this mode of farming there is always nearly one-fifth of the entire extent of the farm under turnips. Again: (1) The farm is divided into seven shifts, one of which is under turnips, excepting the small fraction under potatoes; (2) three out of the seven equal divisions of the farm are under grain crops; and (3) the remaining three are under grass. Under this mode of rotation a seventh part of the farm is always under turnips. I have seen farms worked under six shifts, but this mode is not common in Scotland. The common grain crops are oats, barley and wheat.

Breeding, rearing, and feeding cattle have attained a high degree of development within the present century in Scotland. As a consequence of this the rent of cultivated land has also risen greatly; and I may repeat what I stated elsewhere not ten years ago:――“The sharpest period of competition in farm-letting was during the second and third quarters of the present century. From about 1830 to 1876 the rent of agricultural land in Scotland rose at least from 30 to 40 per cent., and there were several causes which enabled farmers for a time to pay this rise of rents:――(1) There was a marked change and improvement in the modes of culture; (2) there was a notable change in the system of feeding cattle, and an immense increase in the number of cattle thus fed; (3) greater attention and care were paid to the important matter of breeding; (4) there was an almost continuous rise in the price of fat cattle during this period. Thus it was, and especially owing to the latter cause, that farmers were able to pay such high rents.

“This period was also one of great commercial activity and prosperity, unapproached before in the annals of Scotland. But this brought outsiders into the number of those competing for farms; as many men who had made fortunes in trade and commerce desired to have farms, and offered high rents――often more than they were worth. This for a time tended to raise rents still higher. But eighteen years ago it became manifest that the rents of land in Scotland were too high, for the price of fat cattle had fallen about 15 shillings per hundredweight, which represents a sum of from £6 to £7 per head on ordinary fat cattle. This fall in the price of fat cattle is mainly owing to two causes:――(1) To the long-continued depression of trade throughout the civilised world; (2) to the importation of preserved meat and live stock, chiefly from America. Thus it has happened that at the present time many of the farmers in Scotland cannot continue to pay the rents which they may have contracted to do before the fall in the price of fat cattle.”

Thus far I have indicated the improvement and progress of agriculture in Scotland, and pointed out its prime and fundamental importance in relation to the advancement of civilisation. I have also indicated the real state of the question of land rents as it at present stands in Scotland.

In conclusion, it may be remarked that in the early part of the eighteenth century the common wage of day labourers was fivepence a day in winter and sixpence in summer. And within my own recollection, the most capable farm-servant acting as foreman only received six pounds of wages for the half year, and second and third class men five and four pounds, youths from two to three pounds, and boys from one pound to two pounds according to their strength and appearance. In regard to the quality of food there was not much difference between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, so far as farm-servants were concerned.

In the present century horticulture began to receive more attention, and within the last sixty years it has attained a considerable development. Horticultural societies began to be formed in the first quarter of the century, and such societies now exist all over the country, and form a source of enjoyment to a large number of people.