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ON fHE AIIABLE LAND
VI. Such as are principally cultivated for their roots.—And,
VII. Any miscellaneous articles cultivated on arable land*which do not fail under the former heads, or which are notcommonly raised in Scotland .
In drawing up this chapter, the corrected Agricultural Re-ports of the several counties in Scotland were carefully con-sulted. But the principal materials have been derived fromthose of East Lothian , Berwickshire, and Roxburghshire,which are considered as forming the chief station of the bestScottish agriculture. There are, however, considerable dis-tricts in other parts of the kingdom, in which the same sys-tems, in whole or in part, have been judiciously introduced,or are in the progress of being adopted ; and every attentionhas been given to any useful practice which these districts canfurnish. East Lothian certainly is the parent district of ex-cellent tillage and of judicious cropping, among Scottish agri-culturists ; while Berwickshire, and the eastern lowlands ofRoxburghshire, in addition to the good tillage and judicioussuccession of crops prevalent in East Lothian , have combinedthe most perfect system of alternate cropping and pasturage,and have thence become the pattern districts for excellence inthe convertible management of arable land, and judicious ma-nagement of stock ; Certainly not excelled, perhaps unequal-led, for productiveness, economy, and profit, in any otherpart of the united kingdom.
The important subjects now to be discussed, are all of a de-scriptive or didactic nature, and do not admit of being resolv-ed into canons or aphorisms of agricultural science, or of be-ing abridged, without the almost certain danger of becomingobscure; hor could thb systems of Scottish husbandry, aspractised on arable lands in the best managed districts, besufficiently explained in a smaller compass *.