CHAPTER XLVII. Progress of Agriculture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. IN N 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 cattlefeeding 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 timberploughs 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 a ingenious mechanic; and he settled at Houston Mill, in East Lothia,, where he carried on the several occupations of a small farmer, a mi.'er, 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 tra, lled 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 crected 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 selfassertive 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 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 1 Smiles' Lives of the Engineers, Vol. II., pp. 105-114. CHAPTER XLVII. Progress of Agriculture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. N the early part of the eighteenth century agriculture was in a elavation 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 cattlefeeding 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 timberploughs 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 a ingenious mechanic; and he settled at Houston Mill, in East Lothia,, where he carried on the several occupations of a small farmer, a mi.'er, 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 tra. lled 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 crected 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 selfassertive 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." 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 1 Smiles' Lives of the Engineers, Vol. II., pp. 105-114. 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."2 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 2 Tytler's Life of Lord Kames, Vol. II., pp. 27-30; Smiles' Lives of the Engineers, Vol. II., pp. 115-116. Andrew Meikle was the first master who trained John Rennie, the well-known Scotch engineer. |