Volume 3

32
At length arrived the Restoration and the Revolution, which were both
epochs of improvement in agriculture as well as in government. Laws were
passed for the planting and inclosing of ground (k). Acts of the legislature
were made to promote the laying out runrig, and to the dividing of com-
mons (l). Bounties were given by the first parliament of William on the
exportation of corn. In 1696 the parliament, amidst the dear years of the
Revolution, promoted the export of corns without the payment of duty, but
with the encouragement of a bounty (m); the legislature " considering that
" the grains are the greatest product of the nation." The dividing, the
appropriating, the enclosing of the common lands were attended with the most
beneficial effects, at least in the southern shires. The act of Union extended
the English bounties on grain to Scotland, and adopted a bounty on bigg, oat-
meal, and malt of wheat (n).
There were other encouragements given to agriculture in those enterprizing
times. Various treatises were successively published for enlightening an
intelligent people (o). In 1723 were formed, at the metropolis of North-
we have seen above, is from the Celtic and not the Latin. Sibbald, the Scottish glossarist, is more
happy than usual in his etymon of the feirs of the year, from the French four, which is cortainly the
real origin of the word in the Scottish practice. The prejudice of Dr. Jamieson will have the
spelling of the word to be fiar, in order to derive it from the Icl. fiar, fear, the gen. of ft. The
spelling of this word, in Lord Stair's Institutes, is phyars. Yet analogy and fitness require the
spelling of Sibbald, in order to avoid the clash with another fiar in the Scottish jurisprudence
of a quite different signification.
(k) 1 Oha. II., 41 ; 2 Oha. II., 17. An act was at the same time passed for encouraging the export
of corn. 2 Oha. II., ch. 14.
(l) 1 Wm. III., ch. 23, ch. 38.                    (M) 1 Wm. III., ch. 32.                    (n) 5 An., ch. 18.
(o) In 1698 was printed at Edinburgh, Husbandry Anatomized, or several rules and measures
for the better improvement of the ground. In 1706 was given to the public by Lord Belhaven
"Advice to the farmers of East Lothian, how to improve their grounds." In 1724 the society
of improvers at Edinburgh published " A Treatise on fallowing, raising grasses,'' etc. In
1729 was printed at Edinburgh "An Essay on the ways and means for inclosing, fallowing,
"and planting Scotland." In 1733 was published at Edinburgh by Patrick Lyndsay, "The
"Interest of Scotland considered as to police, agriculture, trade, and fishery." In 1743 the
Select Essays of the society of improvers in the knowledge of agriculture were sent into the world by
their able secretary, Robert Maxwell, who closed a useful life in May, 1765. That zealous
agriculturist, moreover, published in March, 1747, the Practical Beemaster ; in April, 1747, a
Letter to the Clergy, directing the improvement of their glebes; in August, 1747, the Practical
Husbandman. At Edinburgh in 1765 was published in two volumes by A. Dickson, A Treatise
on Agriculture. Lord Kames published a work on agriculture in 1767. In the same year there
were printed at Edinburgh, " Select Essays on Husbandry from the Museum Rusticum." These
intimations are alone sufficient to show that the people of Scotland had thus opportunities enow of
being well acquainted with the theories of agriculture.