164 AGRICULTURAL SURVEY

native plaster which I made trial of had not. I began by laying on six pecks to the acre, and increased the quantity till I expended six bushels per acre, yet no visible al- teration of the herbage could be discovered even to this day.

Small inclosures of grass land, in my opinion, answer much better than the same quantity in large ones,(except in pastures for sheep, which are required to be large for the benefit of cool breezes in summer, and less trouble- some on account of the fly.) Ihave long contended this argument with the advocates for large fields, and am glad Mr. Robertson, in his Survey of Mid Lothian, agrees with me in that opinion. I constantly see small closes, surrounded with good white-thorn hedges, bear a greater burthen of herbage in proportion, than large ones; and the reason seems evident. Independent of the manute deposited in the shade by cattle when sheltering, in spring, when the cold sharp winds blow off from the surface of the ground, the warm atmospheric air occasioned by the reflected rays of the sun, in the same manner they blow off the circumambient warmth, caused by perspiration, from our bodies, and render us more sensible of cold than in still calm weather, though the thermometer points

the same degree.‘Thus wind, by having to pass the in-

terwoven branches of the thorn hedge of a small inclosure, is not able to resume its former violent current before it becomes again broken and divided by another of the same fences. In summer, when much hot and dry weather prevails, the hedges shade off the sun and wind, so as to prevent the moisture left by showers and dews from ex- halation; of consequence vegetation 1s more encouraged than where the ground is more parched.

The breed of stock has not yet been much attended to|

in this neighbourhood; and though I have long wished to improve my own breed of beasts, other business has pre- vented me from taking that pains necessary for accom-

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