rigid Presbyterian will admit, that that day of rest may be highly useful in drying it, and preparing it for being carried.

In Morayshire, where the climate used to be dry and early, so much reliance is placed on the weather being favourable that there is great dilatoriness. One season I left a great deal of the crop out in that province, and when I got into the Garioch district of Aberdeenshire, beyond Huntly, which the Moravians will admit is much less favoured, I found that superior diligence had almost cleared the country. In the present season Conachar, a farmer near Pitlochrie, in Atholl, took the lead of his neighbours many days, and was weeks before some of them.

In West Lothian, some years ago, the foreman on a large farm begged hard that the stooks might be stacked, but his master wanted them to be drier. The weather changed soon after, and the crop was drenched till the yellow relapsed, some into green, and some into black.

When an opportunity is once lost, and the weather, after be ing long fine, becomes unsettled, the danger is in proportion to the duration of the monsoon. If these observations be admitted to be at least partly well founded, I shall be satisfied if they lead to experiments on a small scale, by which there can be no loss. Thus, I anticipate that at least the expense, anxiety, injury, and reproach of the harvest being prolonged into the winter months will cease, and the character of our farmers, grain, and climate be ameliorated.

I shall only add a few words as to hay-making, in which we are wofully behind. On the south confines of Perthshire, seeing a field that had been cut some time, and was quite ruined with wet, I asked how it had happened, and was told by a neighbour that he, whose ground was 200 feet higher, had had his in stack several weeks. The fear of damp causing it to heat, leads to an exposure of such incredible duration, that perhaps no season of drought in Scotland has ever yet been long enough for it to escape the destructive alternations of wetting and drying till the hay is worn out. The system of waiting in a dry season till it gets a little rain to produce a final growth, generally ends by landing it in a long series of bad weather; and the plan of changing the small heaps into large ricks in the field, by which it is held to be safe, has the effect of unnecessarily in

creasing the labour, adding to the delay, and withering a new and larger surface. Straw well got in would be as nourishing as hay that has had six weeks of seasoning. If the seed be the object, they must be content with "windlestraes" instead of hay; but if the hay be what is wanted, the late system is ruinIt exhausts the soil, loses the longest days and warmest weather, renders the crop less weighty and nourishing, makes it liable to be discoloured and rotted by wet, occasions more trouble and expense in winning it, makes the second crop much later and lighter, and sacrifices the advantage of the rain that destroyed its predecessor.

ous.

I trust I have now made out that work may be saved with profit instead of loss.

ON THE ADVANTAGES OF PERMANENT PASTURE OVER ARABLE HUSBANDRY ON THE INFERIOR SOILS OF SCOTLAND.

THE superiority of Scottish agriculture, in comparison with that of our southern neighbour, is acknowledged by every body. Such superiority could scarcely be expected to exist, independent of the disadvantages of soil and climate, without some counteracting advantages, and these are neither few nor slight. Not the least prominent, and the only one I shall notice, is the small comparative expense all kind of farm work is done for in Scotland. If the Scottish farmer had to keep the same number of servants, and in the same expensive style as the English farmer, joined with other expensive habits and customs which it is not easy to get rid of, thousands of acres of poor land in Scotland, at present uncultivated, could not bear the expense of cultivation, and would have to be turned to pasture. But, notwithstanding the prudent habits and economical mode of cultivating land in Scotland, which has extended cultivation on inferior land to such an extent, and which in England could never be thought of, it is still, I think, very doubtful that cultivation on these soils is the most profitable way of farming the land; and it is well worthy of inquiry whether, under proper management, a permanent sward of grass could not be formed on such land more profitably to the occupier than farming could ever be

expected to be on such soils, and, in consequence, more beneficial both to the proprietor and the country.

The kind of land I allude to is what is termed by farmers weak clays or soft lands, always on a strong clay retentive bottom, and as wet as land can well be from rain or surface water. I believe this in general is the character of the land in the west of Scotland, and, to a person a judge of land, is easily distinguished from rich clays.

But as land varies so much in its quality, the best way of conveying an idea on the subject is to mention the rent such land would bring in the market. What I maintain, therefore, is, that farms which bring a rent of from 15s. to 30s. per Scots acre, is, under proper management, capable of being converted to good permanent grass.

I am aware it is a common opinion, that this kind of land, if thrown out of cultivation, would become a barren moor; that grass, after it is two or three years old, is utterly 'worthless, and, unless again brought under the plough and again sown down with fresh grass seeds, such land would become totally valueless both to the proprietor and the community. This opinion is very current. It is brought forward by newspaper editors; even Members of Parliament in the House of Commons have insisted upon it.

It is no doubt true that grass, after the first year on this kind of land, is of the worst description, and being generally in a very wet state, and often overstocked with cattle, is so poached and destroyed that it cannot be expected to improve. The only grass seeds sown are clover and ryegrass. The clover is all gone after the first year; the ryegrass, although of the best quality on such land and in such a state, is seldom permanent. The pasture in the third season is indeed miserable, and there is no wonder at the common opinion, that permanent grass any value is incapable of being formed on poor land.

To prevent any misconception, I may, however, state, that abundance of pasture in a field will generally bear an exact proportion to the quality of the soil, however carefully the field may have been laid down to grass. No circumstance so strongly

points out the value of land as the productiveness of its pasture. I maintain, however, if the field has been put down to grass in

a careful manner, and arrived at some age, so that the roots of the indigenous grasses may have had time to have firmly rooted and established themselves in the ground, grass of a superior kind may be expected on land of inferior quality. And even although the pasture was of the most ordinary kind, as it is attended with comparatively no expense in the present state of markets, it will be found more profitable than arable husbandry.

I believe there are many districts in Scotland where arable and convertible husbandry is carried on. The land is of so poor a quality, the rent is not more than 10s. per Scots acre, that some individuals may doubt whether such lands will yield proportionally good permanent pasture. But on the contrary, the most of it will be a clay soil, so tough, hard, and steril, as to resist every attempt to form a good permanent sward upon it.

In one of the late Numbers of this Journal, there is a valuable paper on the Improvement of Natural Pasture upon poor land. I have not the Journal by me; but I think I remember it sufficiently to quote a remark or two. The writer states, that on very old grass, perhaps from time immemorial, the turf has a strength and multiplicity of roots altogether different from young pasture, and that such old turf supplies a far more abundant herbage. But on poor tough clay the grass may get mossed and otherwise degenerate, and is capable of being greatly improved by being ploughed up; but when such land is ploughed up and cropped several years in succession, the roots of the indigenous grasses are completely destroyed, and the land may remain in grass nearly half a century before it is again covered with pasture of the same quality. The writer recommends ploughing the land in the end of autumn, and in spring give the land a turn or two to break down the winter furrow or sward, and by the end of summer to sow fresh grass seeds. In this way the roots of the indigenous grasses are not rotted away as if the land had been kept in crop two or three years. The natural grasses from the old roots speedily grow up again with renewed vigour, and the pasture left in a greatly improved state. This is a new mode of improving natural pasture, which on poor land may be beneficial. But I confess I have had but little opportunity of being acquainted with arable land let under a

rent of 20s. per Scots acre; and land of this kind, if well drained, will be found to carry wonderfully good pasture without any necessity for ploughing it up in this way.

In those districts of the country where the land is chiefly a soft clay soil, I would just ask any person to examine the grass in fields which have been for a considerable time in pasture.

The rage for arable farming, stimulated by the high price corn has always brought in the market, until within these last few years, has made grass of any age very rare. But still there may be one or two such parks. At any rate, the fields around gentlemen's houses are generally in grass. Let him examine these parks, and inquire the rents they let at. I am mistaken if he does not find the rent of these parks are just double the rent of the farms around them. It may be said, the land is better; but I think it will be found there is little difference in this respect. It may also be said, the cause is the high price of grass at the particular time referred to; but if you inquire the average rent of grass in districts where the land is of the best quality, and compare it with the average rent of the farms in the neighbourhood, you will find them very much alike;— and this, likewise, is not the cause. The real cause, I suspect, is just that pasture on inferior land is produced in a proportionally greater abundance than any other crop, and is, in consequence, more profitable. And it turns out that land which was put down to pasture, chiefly with a view to ornament, as it surrounded the house of the proprietor, becomes the most valuable field upon his estate. Let the landed proprietor mark this, and inquire what effect it would have upon his rent-roll, if more of his estate were covered with pasture of as good quality; and by minutely examining the quality of the soil, and comparing it with the soil of his other farms, calculate to what extent upon his estate grass of equal value may be expected.

Let also any person look to the grass at the sides of the hedges, and other corners of the field where the plough cannot reach, and there observe the closeness and verdure of grass in its natural state over the modern grass field of two or three years of age, on land of the same kind.

I shall now notice what may be considered the best mode of