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IN SCOTLAND.

277

stock, in cold and stormy weather, is stated by one intelli-gent observer *, as running from five to eight degrees of thethermometer above that of bleak unsheltered lands in thesame neighbourhood. It is of the utmost importance, to thecomfort and consequent thriving of live-stock, that, in inclo-sures, they can always have a sheltered place in whicli tosleep or ruminate: and it is well known, that the grass isboth earlier and more abundant in inclosures, than in bleakexposed open lands, of similar soils, and in the same neigh-bourhood.

In the management of his arable lands, the farmer derivesother solid advantages from inclosures. The important ideaof security against trespass, from his own live-stock and thoseof his neighbours, gives a stimulus to his exertions towardsimprovement, enabling him to adopt a correct rotation ofcrops, to proceed with vigour in their cultivation, and to reaptheir fruits in safety. The case is widely different on openlands; in which wheat, sown grasses, turnips,, and othercrops, are constantly exposed to trespass in winter, and can-not therefore be cultivated to advantage.

In addition to the foregoing important advantages, a judi-ciously planned and well executed fence, often operates as amost useful drain to the land in its neighbourhood. Werethe entire advantages, derivable by farmers from good in-closures, capable of being correctly estimated in contrastwjth uninclosed land, it would probably appear, that an acreof inclosed pasture land, is w r orth twice as much as an acreof the same kind of land, and in the same climate, if not in-closed. When the whole of a farm is under tillage rota-tions, as is the case in the Carse of Gowrie, and on the bestland of East Lothian , subdivision fences, though still very ad-vantageous, cannot indeed be supposed to add so much tofhe value of the soil.

• Aberdeenshire Report.