The following Report relating to Renfrewshire was drawn up at the desire of the Board of Agriculture

CHAPTER VII.

ARABLE LAND.

There is not the same reason now to complain of the neglect of our farmers; still, however, earlier ploughing and sowing ought to be more carefully attended to, and particularly in this variable climate.

In the higher district, after about seven years pasturage, the best rotation in common use is;

1. Oats;

2. Oats;

4. Hay; then ordinary pasturage.

The pasture lands, before ploughing, are frequently manured with dung, or a mixture of earth and lime. Often, however, a different rotation is followed. After manuring the preceding summer, the ground is ploughed about the end of March, and oats are sown for three years successively; then, without grass seeds, or additional manure, it is left to itself for six years, when the same rotation succeeds.

In what we have termed the gently rising district, the rotation most commonly followed is;

1. Oats out of lea;

2. Oats;

After one or two crops of hay, the land is generally pastured for two or three years, and then broken up with oats. Many farmers, instead of two, successive crops of oats, introduce with great propriety a crop of drilled potatoes with dung, as the second in rotation; and, in this case, the third, which is generally wheat, receives no manure.

On the grounds of a few gentlemen, a still more perfect rotation of the following kind is adopted;

1. Oats from grass;

2. Fallow or turnips with manure;

S. Barley with grass seeds; viz. six lbs. red-clover; four lbs. white; with half a boll of rye-grass, per acre;

4. Hay; and then pasture, for such a number of years as is deemed expedient.

In the flat grounds, the most common rotation. is similar to that which is in use in the middle division, excepting that the pasture is in general for a. shorter period. On particular grounds, the following rotation was pursued in 1795;

1. Oats from grass;

2. Fallow;

3. Wheat;

4. Barley;

5. Beans and pease;

6. Oats;

8. Hay; then pasture.

1. Wheat after fallow;

2. Pease and beans;

3. Barley;

4. Hay;

5. Hay;

7. Fallow.

On the good lands near the river Cart, within the parish of Cathcart, the rotation of crops is similar to that followed on the haughs of Clyde, in the vicinity -of Glasgow; viz.

1. Oats from lea;

2. Drilled potatoes with dung;

3. Wheat, with a slight top dressing of lime;

4. Clover and rye-grass, sometimes cut green, but most commonly made into hay; and afterwards pasture for two years.

The farmers in that district of the county admit, that this rotation has hitherto been the most profitable of any they have adopted.

The flat grounds about the burgh of Renfrew, have been long remarkable for producing potatoes of excellent quality, but the profits arising from them have induced the possessors to follow a rotation, in which that beneficial plant bears much too great a proportion for the soil.

In these two districts of the gently rising and lower grounds, there are many farmers of great activity, and their industry has been rewarded with success.

Potatoes are cultivated in this county with great success; they may be said to be almost the only green crop, and almost the only instance in which the drilled husbandry is practised. They were introduced to Paisley and Renfrew, about the year 1750, from Kintyre; were at that time first planted in the field, and were not till then an article of general consumpt, but are now cultivated extensively. They are planted in drills from 2 feet 4 inches to 3 feet distant, and dung is always applied. In the culture of this useful vegetable, it may be truly said, that Renfrewshire and the neighbourhood of Glasgow excel most counties, probably most parts of the united kingdom. The drills are straight and well formed. The crop is kept extremely clean from weeds; and a degree of neatness and industry, highly commendable and worthy of imitation, appears almost every where through the county, in the culture and management of this valuable crop. One proprietor[57] had fifteen acres in 1793, and twenty-six acres in 1794.

The mode of culture of potatoes in the parish of Cathcart is stated in the Statistical account of that parish, published in 1793, as follows: "Summer fallowing is not much practised. Instead of this the ground is prepared for potatoes, by giving it repeated plowings, and laying upon it from 40 to 60 carts per acre of Glasgow dung. Each cart costs from 2s. 6d. to 3s. before it is laid upon the field. The potatoes, being planted in drills, are first cleaned with the hand hoe, when beginning to appear above the ground, after which (as their perfection, it would appear, in a great measure depends upon their being taken the best care of when young, till they arrive at a certain length) they are repeatedly dressed with a small single horse plough. The profit arising from this crop, properly managed, is so great, as scarcely to be credited in places less favourably situated, £10, £15, and even £20 per acre, have been received for them, before they have been dug up. It must be owned, indeed, that nothing but such a market as Glasgow, to which a bulky article like this can be transported, and immediately sold, could enable the farmer to derive so much."

The kinds of potatoes, in most common use for the table, are the round white, the white kidney, and a considerable variety of the red, purple and streaked potatoes. A kind of potatoe is sometimes planted called the white bloom, chiefly intended for the food of cattle; and from this species a greater produce is obtained, than from those planted for the table.

There have been many trials of the effect of pulling the flowers or blossoms from the potatoe, so as to prevent the seed from forming, and the result has been an increase of produce. One gentleman[58] prosecuted this experiment with great care and attention, during the years 1803 and 1804, in fields of two acres, each year, cultivated according to the usual mode in drills, and planted in manure. By taking alternate portions of equal area in the same field; pulling the blossoms from some of these divisions, and leaving others to ripen the seed; attending in the autumn when the potatoes were taken up, and measuring the produce with great care, he uniformly found, both years, the quantity increased 10 or 15 per cent, where the blossoms were taken off; there being very few small potatoes in these portions of the field. He also found the quality much improved in consequence of the crop ripening sooner than usual, where the blossoms had been pulled, and therefore not affected by the frosts, which often set in so early that the growth of the potatoe is completely checked before it arrive at maturity. Having thus ascertained that the quantity and quality of the potatoe crop is much improved by pulling the flowers, he has continued the same practice for the last five or six years, on fields of from four to nine acres, and he considers this experiment well worth prosecuting to any extent. The blossoms are pulled by children from ten to twelve years of age, their wages sixpence per day, and the expense is about three shillings per acre. About four acres of potatoes, from which he took the blossoms, in 1808, produced 65 bolls per acre, Renfrewshire measure. The same practice has obtained for many years among heritors in the glen of Lochwinnoch; as stated by the late Mr M'Dowall, in a letter to the president of the board of agriculture; in which he remarks, that if it shall be ascertained by repeated experiments fairly made, that potatoes ripen sooner when the flowers are taken off, this consequence of the practice must be more valuable than the increase of weight.

Oats are sown in March, and April; bear from the first of May to the beginning of June; wheat in September and October. Reaping generally commences about the beginning of September, and the harvest is seldom finished till the beginning of November. When the harvest is protracted till this late period of the season, which, in consequence of the climate, unavoidably happens in many parts of the west of Scotland, the husbandman's labours, anxious cares, and expenses are greatly increased. It has been truly said by a writer of this county on the difficulties of a bad harvest, that the farmer's misfortune in this case "happens at the very time when he thought of enjoying the return of all his labours. The happiness, the joy of harvest, which is so much celebrated in ancient writings, and has afforded their finest allusions; that joy which, in happier climates, is still the cause of mirth and song, farmers in the west of Scotland seldom taste in full security and ease." The harvest of 1781, was nearly completed all over this county in August. That of 1782, not till the middle of November.

The quantity of oats sown is from 10 pecks to a boll per acre; of barley 10 to 14 pecks; of wheat about 3 firlots. The kinds of oats are Blainsley, Dundee or Angus, and several of the early species. The Tartarian oats were also sometimes cultivated, and found to be uncommonly prolific; there being instances of a return of 22 bolls for one. But they are now given up, being found by far too late for this climate. The most commonly sown pease are the Hastings, or the Magbiehill.

The quantities of farm produce, in good grounds, may be rated as follow;

Oats, from 8 to 10 bolls per acre;

Barley,—6 to 8;—

Wheat,—8 to I 2;—

Beans and pease,—5 to 8;—

Potatoes,— 45 to 50:—

And, in many instances, 12 bolls of oats per acre have been produced, equal to 76 Winchester bushels or 9½ quarters. Some parts of the county exhibit uncommon instances of fertility. In one of those fine holms situated on the banks of the White-Cart, in the neighbourhood of Pollock-house, some fields produced, in 1794, eighteen bolls of oats per acre, of the best quality, which is equal to 14¼ quarters.[59] Some of the lands lying near the conflux of Gryfe and Black-Cart are also highly fertile; they were rented in 1795, in a nineteen years lease, at £3 per acre; and are now at £5 5s. The great produce per acre of some fields of oats is certainly to be ascribed, in great measure, to the practice of allowing the lands to remain in pasture a considerable time, as well as to the fertility of some particular spots.