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RURAL POEMS 
 
 OR, 
 
 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
RURAL POEMS, 
 
 ILLUSTBATIVE OF THE 
 
 HUSBANDRY, SCENERY, AND MANNERS 
 
 OP 
 
 Jkotlanfc ; 
 
 OB, 
 
 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES GRAHAME, 
 
 i i 
 AUTHOR OF " THE SABBATH," AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 Divini gloria ruris. 
 
 PRINTED FOR OGLE, DUNCAN, & CO. LONDON ! 
 
 BELL & BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH; 
 
 AND M. OGLE, GLASGOW, 
 
 1821. 
 
M 
 
 k* 
 
 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ] n the following Poem, I have not attempted 
 to exhibit a system of husbandry. I have aimed 
 not so much to instruct as to amuse ; not to 
 teach a science, but to recommend the study of 
 it. As intimately connected with that study, 
 and as a subject of infinite importance in itself, 
 I have pointed my view more or less directly to 
 the situation and manners of the peasantry. 1 1 
 is my wish to draw the attention of landed pro- 
 prietors to that most important class of the 
 community, and to persuade them, that the 
 
 ^- 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 welfare of the country depends in a great mea- 
 sure on preserving the cultivators of the soil in 
 that relative state of respectability, comfort, and 
 consequence, which they have hitherto held, but 
 which the fashionable system of agriculture has 
 an evident tendency to destroy. In this view, 
 though I am no friend to idleness. I am humblv 
 of opinion that innocent recreations ought to be 
 encouraged ; that festivals, holidays, customary 
 sports, and every institution which adds an hour 
 of importance, or of harmjess enjoyment, to 
 the poor man's heart, ought to be religiously 
 observed. 
 
 Descriptions, therefore, of old customs, some 
 of them unhappily on the wane, I conceived 
 might be useful, as tending not only to preserve 
 their remembrance, but even perhaps to retard 
 the rapidity of their decline. But while I say 
 that such was my aim, I am far from arrogating 
 
PREFACE, ^1 
 
 to myself the merit of having succeeded in that 
 aim. To draw a picture of rural life, so truly; 
 and at the same time so pleasingly, as to render 
 the original an object of higher interest than it 
 was before, is no easy task. The merit to which 
 I lay claim is that merely of fidelity. 
 
 If the title which I have chosen should be 
 deemed an assuming one, I beg leave to ob- 
 serve, that the word Georgics, though the; title 
 of the most beautiful and complete of Virgil's 
 works, is as much the appropriate term for a 
 poem on husbandry, as the word Tragedy is for 
 a particular species of dramatig composition. 
 
 In having chosen a theme that has been illus- 
 trated by the genius of Virgil, I trust I shall be 
 acquitted of temerity, when it is considered that 
 the British isles differ in so many respects from 
 the countries to which Virgil's Georgics alluded, 
 
Till PREFACE, 
 
 —■in soil, climate, and productions, in men and 
 manners, — that the art of agriculture , in refe- 
 rence to the one, may well be considered as 
 quite a different subject from what it is in re- 
 ference to the other. 
 
 That I have been preceded by Thomson, is a 
 consideration of a more serious kind. He, no 
 doubt, with a genius and felicity which none of 
 his followers need ever hope to equal, has de- 
 scribed many of the most striking appearances 
 o i Nature, and many of the most poetical pro- 
 cesses, so to speak, of husbandry. But though 
 he has reaped, why may not others be permitted 
 to glean ? 
 
 On the topics of that faithful and amiable 
 painter of rustic life, Bloomfield, I have rarely- 
 encroached ; his allusions refer to a district of 
 the island, and to appearances and customs, 
 
PREFACE, IX 
 
 very different from those which I have had in 
 my eye. My allusions relate chiefly to Scotland, 
 to Scottish husbandry, scenery, and manners. 
 At the same time, I will venture to say, that 
 the modes of cultivation which I recommend 
 are not, strictly speaking, local. That the 
 scenery and manners are local, or rather na- 
 tional, is true ; but the rules of agricultural im- 
 provement which I have inculcated, whether by 
 description or direct precept, are equally suit- 
 able to both divisions of the island. It may 
 here be remarked, that the crops, in many dis- 
 tricts north of the Tweed, are at least equal to 
 any that England can boast of; and that, in 
 truth, Scotland has found a compensation for 
 the inferiority of her soil and climate, in the 
 skill and enterprise of her husbandmen, 
 
 That I am not a practical farmer, is a circum- 
 stance which must, no doubt, derogate from my 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 authority as a writer on agriculture, and may 
 even perhaps draw on my present attempt the 
 imputation of presumption. In my justification, 
 I would observe, that though I have never 
 practised the business, I have studied it, both 
 by much actual observation, and some reading. 
 From my infancy, I have in general passed 
 near the half, sometimes a greater portion of 
 the year, in the country. To the appearances 
 of Nature, and the operations of Agriculture, 
 my attention, though without any particular 
 aim, was long directed ; and of late years I 
 have been stimulated to diligence and accuracy 
 of observation, partly with a view to my present 
 undertaking, and partly by a halftformed inten- 
 tion which I at different periods have harbour- 
 ed, of devoting a portion of my time to the 
 business of husbandry. 
 
 On the abuse of Notes much has of late been 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 said, and justly said, both by critics and readers; 
 With respect to the notes, which compose the 
 concluding part of this volume, I can safely say* 
 that, in adding them, I have been induced by 
 a firm conviction that they would form a useful 
 supplement to the poetical part of the work. 
 In a composition partly didactic, it is often im- 
 possible to reconcile minuteness and precision 
 with poetry. And even with regard to those 
 topics, on which I have somewhat enlarged, 
 explanation appeared not to be superfluous. 
 My deficiency, too, of professional authority ', 
 seemed to require a frequent reference to 
 authors, who united practical to theoretical 
 knowledge. When to these considerations is 
 added this, — that allusions to manners and cus- 
 toms are, of all others, those which most gene- 
 rally require illustration, and that the manners 
 and customs, which are the subjects either of 
 allusion or of description in the following poem, 
 
XH PREFACE. 
 
 are many of them peculiar to one only of the 
 united kingdoms, I trust that, in the judgment 
 of every candid reader, I shall be acquitted of 
 having practised the unworthy device of in- 
 creasing the bulk without adding to the value of 
 my woik. 
 
BRITISH GEORGICH 
 
 JANUARY, 
 
 All Nature feels the renovating force 
 Of Winter, only to the thoughtless eye 
 In ruin seen. The frost-concocted glefa 
 Draws in abundant vegetable soul, 
 A id gathers vigour for the coming year. 
 
 Thoms©> 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 Short sketch of the subject. — Shortness of the day — 
 Address to Night — Morning of the first day of the 
 year — Cessation of labour — Conviviality and joy 
 of the day — Some labours cannot be delayed- — 
 Feeding cattle and sheep — Examine fences — Shelter 
 derived from fences — Improvement of climate from 
 fences — Hedges preferable in this respect to walls 
 — Illustration cf this — -Objection to hedges and belts 
 answered — A heavier fall of snow—Moiming — 
 Threshers — Storm of snore — Shepher*d out with his 
 jloch in the night — Snoiv scene in clear weather — 
 Driving manure and lime — Care of horses — Bed- 
 ding— Slippering — He?i-roost — Foumart — A seren e 
 morning and day — Effects of sun on sheltered spots 
 — Ice scenes — Ronspiel between rival districts — 
 Cottage fireside scene in the evening — Reading — 
 This scene not fictitious in Scotland~Parish 
 schools — Appeal on the advantages of public in- 
 struction — Remonstrance with those who lately op- 
 posed the principle of parish schools in England, 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS 
 
 JANUARY. 
 
 1 he labours of the plough, the various toils 
 That, still returning with the changeful year, 
 Demand the husbandman's and cottar's* care ; 
 The joys and troubles of the peasant's life ; 
 His days and nights of festive mirth, that serve, 
 Though few, yet long foreseen, remembered long. 
 To lighten every task ; his rural sports 
 Afield, at home ; the fickle season's signs ; 
 The varying face of nature, wood, and stream, 
 And sky, and fruitful field, — these now I sing, 
 
 * Cottager. 
 
4 BRITISH GEORGICS, 
 
 The wintry sun shoots forth a feeble glimpse 
 Then yields his short-lived empire to the night, 
 Hai), Night i pavilioned 'neath a rayless cope^ 
 I love thy solemn state/ profoundly dark ; 
 Thy sable pall ; thy lurid throne of clouds., 
 Viewless save by the lightnings flash ; thy crown 
 That boasts no starry gem ; thy various voice, 
 That to the heart, with eloquence divine, 
 Now in soft whispers, now in thunder speaks, 
 Not undelightful is thy reign to him 
 Who wakeful gilds, with reveries bright, thy g!ooi% 
 Or listens to the music of the storm, 
 And meditates orf Him who sways its course : 
 Thy solemn state I love, yet joyful greet 
 The long-expected dawn's ambiguous light 
 That faintly pencils out the horizon's verge* 
 
 Long ere the lingering dawn of that blithe mora 
 Which ushers in the year, the roosting cock^ 
 Flapping his wings, repeats his larum shrill ; 
 
JANUARY, 
 
 But on that morn no busy flail obeys 
 His rousing call ; no sounds but sounds of joy 
 Salute the year, — the first-foot's * entering ste^p, 
 That sudden on the floor is welcome heard, 
 Ere blushing maids have braided up their hair ; 
 The laugh, the hearty kiss, the good new year 
 Pronounced with honest warmth. In village, grange, 
 And burrow town, the steaming flaggon, borne 
 From house to house, elates the poor man's heart, 
 And makes him feel that life has still its joys. 
 The aged and the young, man, woman, child, 
 Unite in social glee ; even stranger dogs, 
 Meeting with bristling back, soon lay aside 
 Their snarling, aspect, and in sportive chaee. 
 Excursive scour, or wallow in the snow. 
 With sober cheerfulness, the grandam eyes 
 Her offspring round her, all in health and peace jj 
 And, thankful that she's spared to see ttys day 
 
 * The first visitant who enters a house on new-year's <W? 
 is called \h?jirst-fooU 
 
6 V BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Return once more, breathes low a secret prayer,. 
 That God would shed a blessing on their heads* 
 
 Thus morning passes, till, far south, the sun 
 Shines dimly through the drift, and warning gives, 
 That all the day must not be idly spent. 
 Some works brook not delay ; the stake, the stall , 
 And fold, at this rough season, most demand 
 Assiduous care ; the sheep-rack must be filled 
 With liberal arms, and, from the turnip field, 
 A plenteous load should spread the boulted snow ; 
 While winterers, by hedge or bush that cowr, 
 Expect their wonted sheaf. 
 
 Throughout this month 
 Much it imports your fences to survey; 
 For oft the heifers, tempted by the view 
 Of some green spot, where springs ooze out, and thaw 
 The falling flakes as fast as they alight, 
 Bound o'er the hedge ; or at neglected gaps 
 
JANUARY. - 7 
 
 Burst scrambling through, and widen every breach, 
 A stake put timely in, or whinny bush, 
 Until the season come when living plants 
 May fill the vacant space, much harm prevents. 
 
 Some husbandmen deem fences only formed 
 To guard their fields from trespass of their own, 
 Or neighbour's herd or flock ; and lightly prize 
 The benefits immense which shelter brings. 
 Mark how, within the shelter of a hedge, 
 The daisy, long ere winter quits the plain, 
 Opens its yellow bosom to the sun. 
 
 A hedge full grown, if with a hedge-row joined;, 
 Or circling belt, the climate of your field 
 Improves, transmutes from bleak and shivering cold 
 To genial warmth : no graduated scale 
 Is needed to demonstrate this plain truth, 
 Obvious as true ; for there a vivid green 
 
t BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Tinges your early sward, there lingers long 
 When winter winds have blanched the neighbourir 
 
 Some fences tend but little to abate 
 The biting cold ; — the wall, unless around 
 A narrow field, or raised of towering height, 
 But small degree of sheltering warmth affords. 
 It is by artificial calm that fields 
 Are warmed ; and walls but slightly check 
 The sweeping blast. The liquid air is ruled 
 By laws analogous to those which sway 
 The watery element : — See how a stream 
 Surmounts obstructing rocks, or crossing dams. 
 Seeming as if resistance gave new force ; 
 But, if obstructed b}' a fallen tree, 
 Or dipping branch, smoothly at glides along 
 In gentler course, and dimples as it flows ; 
 So through the pervious check of spray and twig, 
 The blast, impeded in its course, not turned, 
 Slackens its boisterous speed, and sighs along the vale. 
 
JANUARY. 9 
 
 Whoe'er delights in sheltered winter walks, 
 Or garden well protected from the blight 
 Of nipping winds, should cultivate the beech. 
 Quickly it grows, and through the year retains 
 Its foliage : withered though it be, yet warm, 
 Its very rustle warms the wint'ry blast. 
 
 List not to him, who says that shelter'd fields 
 Suffer from lack of air ; that corn once lodged 
 Is lost, if not exposed to every breeze. 
 True wisdom oft consists but in a choice 
 Of ills ; and, if sometimes luxuriant crops 
 Are injured by an atmosphere confined, 
 Far oftener are they in their early stage 
 Protected thus from pelting rains, which else 
 I ay bare the roots, and save, I ween, all risque 
 Of growth luxuriant, or of prostrate stalks. 
 
 Now broadened, blinding flakes, by day, by night. 
 In thickening showers descend, and oft, ere morn, 
 
10 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 The crow of chanticleer, obtusely heard, 
 Announces that a deeper fall has thatched 
 His chinky roof; the doors are half blocked up ; 
 From house to barn the path deep buried lies ; 
 And, nigh waist-deep sinking, the threshers w T ade 
 To ply their early task. Cheerful the sound 
 Of double strokes, ceasing but till the sheaf 
 Be turned, or new one loosed : but sorrowful 
 The sound of single flail ; it tells that peace 
 Is not within our gates. 
 
 All out-door work 
 Now stands ; the waggoner, with wisp-wound feet< 
 And wheelspokes almost filled, his destined stage 
 Scarcely can gain. O'er hill, and vale, and wood, 
 Sweeps the snow-pinioned blast, and all things veils 
 In white array, disguising to the view 
 Objects well know r n, now faintly recognized. 
 One colour clothes the mountain and the plain, 
 Save where the feathery flakes melt as they fall 
 
JANUARY. 11 
 
 Upon the deep blue stream, or scowling lake ; 
 
 Or where some beetling rock o'erjutting hangs 
 
 Above the vaulty precipice's cove. 
 
 Formless, the pointed cairn now scarce o'ertops 
 
 The level dreary waste ; and coppice woods, 
 
 Diminished of their height, like bushes seem. 
 
 With stooping heads, turned from the storm, the flocks^ 
 
 Onward still urged by man and dog, escape 
 
 The smothering drift, while, skulking at a side,, 
 
 Is seen the fox, with close down-folded tail, 
 
 Watching his time to seize a straggling prey ; 
 
 Or from some lofty crag he ominous howls, 
 
 And makes approaching night more dismal fall. 
 
 But not with night's approach the shepherd's toils 
 Are ended ; through the deep and dreary glooms, 
 Without one guiding star, he struggling wades 
 The rising wreath ; till, quite o'erspent, compelled 
 To leave his flock to time and chance, he turns 
 Homeward his weary and uncertain steps, 
 
12 BRITISH GEOKGICS-. 
 
 Much doubting of his wa}^, foreboding much, 
 
 In vain he tries to find his wonted marks, — 
 
 The hill-side fountain, with its little plat 
 
 Of verdant sward around ,• the well-known cairn ; 
 
 The blasted branchless oak ; the ancient stone 
 
 Where murdered martyrs fell, and where they lie: 
 
 In vain he lists to hear the rushing stream, 
 
 Whose winding course would lead him to his home. 
 
 O'ercome at last, yielding to treacherous rest, 
 
 He sits him down, and folds within his plaid, 
 
 In fond embrace, the sharer of his toils, 
 
 The partner of his children's infant sports. 
 
 His children ! thought of them wakes new resolves 
 
 To make one last despairing effort more. 
 
 Meanwhile they, crouching round the blazing hearth* 
 
 Oft ask their mother when he will return. 
 
 She on her rocking infant looks the while, 
 
 Or, starting, thinks she hears the lifted latch ; 
 
 And oft the drift comes sweeping o'er the floor, 
 
 While anxiousty she looks- into the storm, ] 
 
JANUARY* IS 
 
 Returning soon to stir the dying brands, 
 
 That with their blaze her sinking hopes revive : 
 
 Alas, her hopes are transient as that blaze, 
 
 And direful images her fancy crowd, — 
 
 The dog returning masterless ; the search 
 
 By friends and kinsmen wandering far o'er mos.s 
 
 And moor; the sad success, — his body found 
 
 Half buried in a wreath ; the opening door 
 
 To let the bearers in ! . . . The door is opened : 
 
 Shook from poor Yarrow's fur, a sleety mist 
 
 Is scattered round, and in his master steps. 
 
 What joy ! what silent tearful joy pervades 
 
 The late despairing groupe ! Round him they cling ; 
 
 One doffs his stiffened plaid, and one his shoes ; 
 
 Kneeling, one chafes his hands and feet benumbed S 
 
 The sleeping babe is roused to kiss its sire, 
 
 Restored past hope ; and supper, long forgot, 
 
 Crowns the glad board : » Nor is their evening pray a* 
 
 This night omitted ; fervent, full of thanks, 
 
14 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 From glowing hearts in artless phrase it flows I 
 Then, simply chaunted by the parent pair, 
 And by the lisping choir, the song of praise, 
 Beneath the heath-roofed cottage in the wild, 
 Ascends more grateful to the heavenly throne, 
 Than pealing diapason, and the loud 
 Swelling acclaim of notes by art attuned. 
 
 But clearer skies succeed ; the downy fall 
 No longer dims the welkin, and, low poised, 
 The sun gleams slanting o'er the beauteous waste 
 Of snow, here smoothing o'er each bosky bourne, 
 Or heaved into a mimic moveless wave, 
 There drifted up against some cottage wall, 
 In easy slope uniting with the roof. 
 How dazzling white the illimitable glare ! 
 With ruby-tinted beams twinkling, till ache? 
 The wearied eye. that vainly seeks to find 
 A resting-place, compelled at last to close, 
 
JANUARY. HI 
 
 Soon as, by frequent hoof and wheel, the roads 
 A beaten path afford, 'tis time to yoke 
 The rested teem, and, from the neighbouring town. 
 To drive the well-heaped loads of rich manure ; 
 Or, from the smoke-enveloped kilns, bring home 
 The fertilizing stone. Now compost mounds 
 Ought from their snowy covering to be cleared, 
 To feel the powerful influence of the frost. 
 
 But chiefly, in this rigorous month, attend 
 To keep the team in order for the field : 
 Unyoke betimes, whatever be the task, 
 And house them ere the disappearing sun 
 Shoot, as he sinks, a feeble parting glimpse. 
 Then see their nightly lair * be warm and clean. 
 Of well-dried fern or straw ; this profits more 
 Than half their food ; nor is it wasteful care : 
 For thus, 'gainst spring's return, the strutting cock> 
 
 * Repeatedly used by Dryden in this sense. 
 
fitf BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Proud of his height upon yon reeking pile, 
 Tells, as he crows, of early thriving brairds ?; 
 
 How pleasant when the smoking cribs are filled 
 Closing the door, to turn, with listening ear, 
 And hearken to the sound of busy mouths ; 
 Then, with an upward gaze, to wander o'er 
 The starry host, and think that He, who rolls 
 Yon spheres innumerable, deigns to feed 
 Both man and beast, and all the fowls of heaven 
 
 O nightly miracle ! to me still new, 
 Though long beheld : O soul-elating sight I 
 Stupendous record, witnessing to man 
 A ruling power, almighty and benign. 
 
 Be not forgot, amid your evening care- 
 To see that all be safe beneath the roof> 
 
 * Grain c#op in its-early tftaggs 
 
JAKUAIt'ST. 
 
 Where snugly^ with his dames, sits chanticleer. 
 Each hole shut up, then every part explore, 
 Lest, ambushed in a corner, couches sly 
 The thirsty foumart, by his eyes betrayed, 
 That, glaring from some darksome nook, outshine 
 Your glimmering lamp : — with tiptoe step glide out 
 Up from the fireside rouse your sleeping cur ; 
 Haste then, not weaponless, and, followed close 
 By man and boy y all eager for the sport, 
 Rush in, and, if the fell destroyer 'scape 
 Your hurried ill-aimed strokes, Luath, more cool. 
 Will seize him fast, and lay him at your feet : 
 A deed remembered long on winter nights, 
 When scarce a fragment of the trophied scalp, 
 Grinning, remains to grace your stable-door, 
 
 Ruddy is now 'the dawning as in June, 
 And clear and blue the vault of noon-tide Mky ; 
 Nor is the slanting orb of day unfelt. 
 
 From sunward rocks, the icicle's faint^drop, 
 
18 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 By lonely river-side, is heard at times 
 To break the. silence deep ; for now the stream 
 Is mute, or faintly gurgles far below 
 Its frozen ceiling : silent stands the mill, 
 The wheel immoveable, and shod with ice. 
 The babbling rivulet, at each little slope, 
 Flows scantily beneath a lucid veil, 
 And seems a pearly current liquified ; 
 While, at the shelvy side, in thousand shapes- 
 Fantastical, the frostwork domes uprear 
 Their tiny fabrics, gorgeously superb 
 With ornaments beyond the reach of art : 
 Here vestibules of state, and colonnades ; 
 There Gothic castles, grottos, heathen fanes, 
 Rise in review, and quickly disappear ; 
 Or through some fairy palace fancy roves, 
 And studs, with ruby lamps, the fretted roof; 
 Or paints with every colour of the bow 
 Spotless parterres, all freakt with snow-white flowers, 
 Flowers that no archetype in nature own ; 
 
JANUARY. 19 
 
 Or spreads the spiky crystals into fields 
 
 Of bearded grain, rustling in autumn breeze. 
 
 Upon the river's brink the schoolboy stands, 
 And, hesitating, eyes the clear expanse 
 Of solid water. First, a stone he throws,—* 
 It o'er the elastic surface, ringing, bounds 
 With frequent leap, then smoothly glides along ; 
 Cautious he forward steps, starting dismay ed, 
 To hear, as if a rent struck upward far, 
 • And see beneath his foot the dialled ice. 
 IJear not, poor elf; but venturing enjoy 
 Thy harmless pastime : yielding ice is strong., 
 And safer still as farther from the shore. 
 Or, heedful of the fond parental fears, 
 Wait patient till another starry night 
 Has, in that frozen mirror-plate, beheld 
 Another galaxy inverted shine. 
 Tis then deep shoots the penetrating power. 
 
/2Q BRITISH GEOKGICS. 
 
 Compacting hard, o'er brook and river wide 
 A seamless pavement, luculent } T et strong. 
 
 But chiefly is the power of frost displayed 
 Upon the lake's crystalline broad expanse? 
 Wherein the whole reflected hemisphere 
 Majestically glows, and the full sweep, 
 Prom pole to pole, of shooting star is seen : 
 Or when the noon -day sun illumes the scene, 
 And mountain hoar, tree, bush,, and margin reed,. 
 Are imaged in the deep. At such a time, 
 How beautiful, O Duddingston ! thy smooth 
 And dazzling gleam, o'er which the skaiter skims 
 From side to side, leaning with easy bend, 
 And motion fleet, yet graceful : wheeling now 
 In many a curve fantastic ; forward now, 
 Without apparent impulse, shooting swift, 
 And thridding, with unerring aim, the throng 
 That all around enjoy the mazy sport: 
 Dunedin'r nymphs the while the season brave r 
 
• January; 21 
 
 Ami, every charm enhanced, — the blooming cheek, 
 
 The eye beaming delight, the breathing lips 
 
 Like rosebuds wreathed in mist,— the nameless grace 
 
 Of beauty venturing on the slippery path, — - 
 
 Heighten the joy, and make stern winter smile. 
 
 Scared from her reedy citadel, the swan, 
 
 Beneath whose breast, when summer gales blew soft, 
 
 The water lily dipped its lovely flower, 
 
 Spreads her broa4 pinions mounting to the sky, 
 
 Then stretches o'er Craigrnillar's ruined towers, 
 
 And seeks some lonely lake remote from man. 
 
 Now rival parishes, and shrievedoros, keep, 
 Qn upland lochs, the long-expected tryst * 
 To play their yearly bonspiel d\ Aged men. 
 Smit with the eagerness of youth^ are there, 
 While love of conquest lights their beamless eyes,, 
 
 * Appointment. 
 
 i A match at the game of curling on the Lee. 
 
22 B1ITISH GEORGIC^ 
 
 New-nerves their arms, and makes them young once? 
 more= 
 
 The sides when ranged, the distance meted out. 
 And duly traced the tees *, some younger hand 
 Begins, with throbbing heart, and far o'ershoots, 
 Or sideward leaves, the mark : in vain he bends 
 His waist, and winds his hand, as if it still 
 Retained the power to guide the devious stone, 
 Which, onward hurling, makes the circling groupe 
 Quick start aside, to shun its reckless force. 
 But more and still more skilful arms succeed. 
 And near and nearer still around the tee* 
 This side, now that, approaches ; till at last. 
 Two seeming equidistant, straws or twigs 
 Decide as umpires 'tween contending coits t- 
 
 * The marks. 
 
 fin some parts of Scotland, the stones with which eurteri 
 pfay are called costing, or coifing stones.. 
 
JANUARY. 
 
 Keen, keener still, as life itself were staked, 
 Kindles the friendly strife : one points the line 
 To him who, poising, aims and aims again ; 
 Another runs and sweeps where nothing lies* 
 Success alternately, from side to side, 
 Changes ,* and quick the hours un-noted fly? 
 Till light begins to fail, and deep below, 
 The player, as he stoops to lift his coit, 
 Sees, half incredulous, the rising moon. 
 But now the final, the decisive spell, 
 Begins ; near and more near the sounding stones^ 
 Some winding in, some bearing straight along, 
 Crowd justling all around the mark, while one, 
 Just slightly touching, victory depends 
 Upon the final aim : long swings the stone, 
 Then with full force, careering furious on, 
 Rattling it strikes aside both friend and foe, 
 Maintains its course, and takes the victor's place, 
 The social meal succeeds, and social glass ; 
 in words the light renewed is fought again. 
 
24 BRITISH GEORGICSv 
 
 While festive mirth forgets the winged hours. — 
 Some quit betimes the scene, and find that home 
 Is still the place where genuine pleasure dwells. 
 
 Dear to the peasant's heart his fire-side blaze. 
 And floor new swept to greet his glad return ! 
 And dear the welcome of his child, and dog 
 Fawning to share his favour, still bestowed 
 Upon the climbing infant : sweet meanwhile, 
 His only guest, the redbreast, wakened, trills 
 A summer carol short, then meath his wing, 
 In trust implicit, veils his little head. 
 May be some ancient volume read aloud 
 Fixes the listening groupe ; perhaps the deeds 
 Of Wallace are the theme, — rude though the strain. 
 And mingling false with true, relished by all 
 Who Scotland love, — who liberty adore. 
 Hope, fear, and joy, alternate paint each face, 
 As fluctuates the fortune of the chief: 
 
 ingled, sways the breast. 
 
JANUARY. 25 
 
 And shakes the frame, when Fawdon's ghost appears, 
 
 Perhaps the godly lives, the fearless deaths 
 
 Triumphant, of the men who, on the field, 
 
 Or not less honourable scaffold, fell, 
 
 Asserting Freedom and Religion's cause, 
 
 Arouse each generous feeling of the soul ; 
 
 Or Ramsay's page pourtrays the rural life 
 
 In all the grace of truth ; or Burns calls forth 
 
 Each passion at his will ; then, with a smile, 
 
 A beauteous winning smile of Nature's face, 
 
 Soothes their fell storm into a gentle calm. 
 
 This is no tale which fabling poet dreams, 
 No fancied picture of some former age 
 When truth, and plain though useful knowledge dwelt 
 With virtue, pure religion, simple joy, 
 And innocence, beneath the rustic roof: 
 No, 'tis a faithful portrait, unadorned, 
 Of manners lingering yet in Scotia's vales. 
 Still there, beside the church-yard path, is heard. 
 
26 BRITISH GEOR&lCSc 
 
 From lowly dwelling, rise the noise confused 
 
 Of many tongues, of some who com or seem 
 
 To con with look intent, their little task ; 
 
 There., still the village master and the priest 
 
 Unite to spread instruction o'er the land. 
 
 And let not him who ploughs a wide domain 
 
 Ask, with contemptuous sneer, what that avails 
 
 In making fruitful fields ? Are fields alone 
 
 Worthy the culture of a fostering state ? 
 
 What is a country rich in waving grain, 
 
 In sweeping herds and flocks, barren of meir 
 
 Or, fruitful of a race degenerate, sunk 
 
 In gloomy ignorance, without a ray 
 
 Of useful, or of pleasing lore, to cheer 
 
 The listless hours, when labour folds his arms r 
 
 What heart so base, so sordid, as engross, 
 
 Not only all the luxuries and joys 
 
 Which affluence can minister to man, 
 
 But would, from common use, lock up the fount 
 
 Of knowledge pure, lest men should be too wise! 
 
JANUARY,, 27 
 
 What sacrilegious tongue dare to arraign 
 The glorious work, by which the sacred page 
 Was patent made to every eye that looks 
 Upon the light of heaven, and blesses God 
 That yet a brighter light illumes his soul I 
 Who dares, with brow of adamant, maintain^ 
 That Britain's sons, who sent him to defend 
 Their rights, — whose delegated voice derives 
 Its power from them, — dares, with a cynic jest; 
 Deny the right of Englishmen to read I 
 
BRITISH GEORG1CS. 
 
 FEBRUARY. 
 
 -Sudden from the hills, 
 
 Oer rocks and rvoods, in broad brown cataracts? 
 d thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once. 
 
 Thomson, 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 Mountain snorvs dissolving — River ice breaking—** 
 Signs of Spring's approach — Ploughing' — Cidtiva- 
 tion of waste land — Confrast between waste land 
 and the same land in an improved state — Compost 
 — Spreading manure in time of frost — Use of the 
 brake in stiff soils — Farther signs of Spring — 
 Lark — Crocus — Bees — Feeding of bees — Culiiva- 
 tion of willows — Use of the willow tribes in de- 
 fending the banks of rivers — Various other uses- 
 Description of the inmates of a Blind Asvlim\ — Of 
 a French captive* 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 FEBRUARY. 
 
 1 he long-piled mountain-snows at last dissolve, 
 Bursting the roaring river's brittle bonds. 
 Ponderous the fragments down -the cataract shoot. 
 And; buried in the boiling gulph below, 
 Emerging^ re-appear, then roll along, 
 Tracing their height upon the half-sunk trees. 
 But slower, by degrees, the obstructed wave 
 Accumulated, crashing, scarcely seems 
 To move, pausing at times, until, upheaved 
 In masses huge, the lower sheet gives wav- 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS* 
 
 Bleak still, and winterly, o'er hill and dale,. 
 Is nature's aspect : yet some pleasing signs, 
 Some 1 heart-reviving preludes, faijit and few, 
 Of Spring's sweet season, meet the eye or ear. 
 When calm the eve, Fve heard the partridge call, 
 And seen the pairing couple as they tripped 
 Athwart the wreaths that in the furrows lurk : 
 And even the rere-mouse, when the twilight sleeps-; 
 Unbreathing, spreads her torpid wings, and round 
 From stack to house or barn, and round again. 
 With many a sudden turn, flits and eludes 
 The eye. Than these no surer signs presage 
 An early seed-time, and an early braird. 
 
 And now, when sun and wind have dried the fields, 
 'Tis time to clear your ploughshare in the glebe. 
 If deep you wish to go, or if the soil 
 Be stiff and hard, or not yet cleared of stones, 
 The Scottish plough, drawn by a team four strong 
 Your purpose best will suit; quick it divides 
 
FEBRUARY. S3 
 
 The tumbling mould, while, whistling as he drives, 
 The merry plough-boy cheers the cold bleak day. 
 But if from nature, or from art, the soil 
 Be soft and friable, the smaller plough, 
 Drawn by one pair, obedient to the voice, 
 And double rein held by the ploughman's hand, 
 Moves right along, or winds as he directs. 
 
 \ 
 
 But small degree of skill needs he, whose soil 
 
 Already by the plough has been subdued. 
 
 It is the old uncultivated waste, 
 
 Where yet. the moor hen *, 'mid the bushy heatlu 
 
 Her nest conceals ; where hardy grass alone 
 
 Of coarsest kind, with ling or furze, afford 
 
 A scanty sustenance to flock or herd, — 
 
 Tis chiefly there that judgment is required; 
 
 For there experience is as yet confined, 
 
 While wide the range of objects that demand 
 
 * Female of the Gorcock* 
 
 € 
 
34* BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Discernment, in the choice of various means., 
 To make the desart blossom as the rose. 
 
 Some fail to cultivate their upland wilds, 
 Fearing the cold and bleakness of the clime 
 May baffle all attempts the soil to mend. 
 Fear not or cold or wet, if, lurking low, 
 The daisy's leaf is seen ; or if the briar 
 Erect its prickly stems ; or bramble stretch 
 Its shoots athwart your path, or clover blades, 
 Though small and close, around the sheep-fold spring, 
 
 Begin where fewest obstacles oppose : 
 Choose patches here and there, though small, nor mind 
 The squaring of your fields. The sunny side 
 Of gentle slope is first to be preferred ; 
 For there, if wet the soil, (unless a spring 
 Oozing, deep-seated, rear a plashy sward), 
 'Tis easily laid dry ; and there the Sun, 
 Great fertilizer ! on the fallow mould 
 
FEBRUARY. 
 
 Strikes powerfully, when at his summer height, 
 With perpendicular ray. On such a spot 
 First draw a furrow up and down, 
 Then, turning to the right two furrow-breadtlis. 
 Lay up the mould to meet the former cut. 
 Proceeding thus, though only half the space 
 Hath felt the share, the glebe lies all exposed : 
 And thus on each side the inverted tilth, 
 A channel, smooth and firm at bottom, run?. 
 Bearing all surface water down the slope. 
 To dry and pulverize at once the soil, 
 No mode of tillage is more useful found, 
 Than this so simple. But the full effect 
 Is not obtained, unless the circling year 
 Upon your fallow ground its influence sbed,— 
 The moody spring-time's fitful heat and cold, 
 The summer's steady warmth, the autumn's winds 
 And drenching rains, with winter's frost and thaw* 
 These changes break the most obdurate soil, 
 And make it crumble to receive the air, 
 
36 BRITISH GEORGICS, 
 
 Freathing the breath of vegetable life. 
 Then with the plough again, and yet again, 
 Subdue it well, nor doubt a green crop, strong 
 And plentiful, your labours will rewardf 
 When so prepared, profusely spread it o'er 
 With limestone crumbling into snowy dust. 
 
 But if, as oft befalls, a tilly soil 
 Derive but slight improvement from the plough, 
 And lime, though dealt with an unsparing hand,—? 
 The river bed, where join the stream and pool, 
 Presents a cheap manure : or, if at hand 
 No current bickers o'er its pebbly bar, 
 Explore where with a gentle slope declines 
 The hill into the plain ; there often lies 
 A gravelly layer, precious though little prized. 
 Sometimes a spring will point the place where lurks 
 A magazine immense : if sand appear 
 Around the source, be sure that underneath 
 A stratum more or less is to be found. 
 
FEBRUARY, 37 
 
 Or, if your soil be light, still to the brook 
 
 Or oozing springs resort. 'Tis there are found 
 
 Variety of earths ; for every stream, 
 
 Whether it flow, broad gleaming in the sun, 
 
 A river fair ; or, hidden from the view, 
 
 Mine its meandering course beneath the ground, 
 
 A little fount ; each visits various soils, 
 
 Which to the bottom fall, or side are thrown. 
 
 Where haunts the woodcock, now about to wing 
 
 His way to colder climes, I've seen a spot 
 
 Of vivid green, beneath whose spongy sward 
 
 A store of richest mud lay broad and deep. 
 
 Bear then this truth in mind, — Where'er a spring 
 
 Or water runnel flows, there lies a mine, 
 
 If right applied, of meliorating earth, 
 
 Though cheap, not to be scorned ; if pebbly sand, 
 
 To clay applied, it opens and resolves ; 
 
 If clay or mud, compacts the gravelly soil 
 
 But trust not wholly to manures bestowed 
 
38 BRITISH GE0HGIC9. 
 
 By nature's boon ; for, though you thus may throw 
 A vivid verdure o'er the sterile waste, 
 The meliorated field, without manure, 
 Supplied by herd or flock, relapses soon, 
 And heathy sprigs, with herbage coarse, and shoots 
 Of broom, or gorse, its former state betr&y. 
 Attempt not, then, on recent land to boast 
 Wide fields of waving grain ; by slow degrees 
 Proceed ; the broad-leaved plants at once reward 
 Your husbandry, and more improve the soil. 
 Nor long the time till, thoroughly reclaimed, 
 The new-gained crofts uninjured will sustain 
 Whate'er the oldest cultured lands produce. 
 
 By sucb resources so applied, I've seen, 
 As if it were, a new creation smile ; 
 Have seen the clover, red and white, supplant 
 The purple heath-bell ; rustling ears succeed 
 The dreary stillness of the lurid moor ; 
 The glutted heifer lowing for the pail, 
 
FEBRUARY. 39 
 
 Where starving sheep picked up their scanty fare ; 
 The sheltering hawthorn blossom, where the furze 
 Its rugged aspect reared ; and I have heard, 
 Where melancholy plovers hovering screamed, 
 The partridge-call, at gloamin's lovely hour, 
 Far o'er the ridges break the tranquil hush ; 
 And morning-larks ascend with songs of joy, 
 Where erst the whinchat chirped from stone to stone. 
 
 What unalloyed delight to him whose hands 
 Performed the change, to wander o'er his mead 
 At setting sun, and think, This work is mine ! 
 Or, looking down upon his hedge-row trees, 
 Anticipate the pleasure of their shade ! 
 Not to himself, or scarcely to himself, 
 But to the sweet interrogating wight 
 Whom by the hand he leads ! O happy lot I 
 Compared to his, who, pent in city lane, 
 Broods o'er his cyphered columns, casting up, 
 From time to time, the total of his pelf, 
 
40 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 And grudging sore, that in a few short years, 
 He and his treasure must for ever part. 
 
 The compost pile examine now and turn, 
 And, if 'tis not completely decomposed 
 Into one mass of vegetable mould, 
 With an unsparing hand throw in more lime. 
 When unremitting cold retards the stage 
 Of fermentation, heat, then, genial heat, 
 Must be applied ; nor hesitate to use 
 A little casement sloping to the sun 
 Like garden hot-bed : covering but a part, 
 The process, once begun, pervades the whole, 
 
 If frost returning interrupt the plough, 
 Then is the time, along the hardened ridge. 
 To drive manure, and toss around the heaps,, 
 O'er all the surface equally dispread, 
 Not scattered carelesslv. 
 
FEBRUARY. 41 
 
 If stiff the soil, 
 The larger harrow, called by some the brake, 
 Will much avail : across, and yet across, 
 Drag it with team four strong, and raise a cloud 
 Of dust ; then with the lesser harrow close, 
 Braying your soil till scarce a clod remain, 
 On which preluding lark may sit and sing. 
 
 How sweet, when winter's roughest mood is o'er, 
 The first note of the lark ! How beautiful 
 The crocus shooting leafless through the ground 
 Its simple floweret, prized because it blows 
 The harbinger of Spring ! To me more sweet 
 The first song of the lark, though briefly trilled^ 
 Than all the summer music of the groves ; 
 More beautiful to me the vernal bud, 
 Than all the odour-breathing flowers of May, 
 
 Sometimes, deceived by promise premature 
 Of Spring's approach, or pinched by empty combs,, 
 
42 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Forth from the hive some straggling bees will peep, 
 And, buzzing on the outside of their porch, 
 Will try their wings, but not attempt to fly : 
 Here profit prompts, if pity ask in vain, 
 To save the falling state : Nor large the boon 
 They crave ; — the refuse of the summer spoil, 
 Or syrup of the cane in bourtree * trough, 
 Pushed softly in, will help them till the down 
 Hang on the willow tree, than which no flower 
 Yields fruit more grateful to the frugal tribes. 
 Nor is there found a crop that yields increase 
 More sure, abundant, and at smaller charge, 
 Than does the willow grove ; and now is come 
 The fittest time the limber slips to plant. 
 Choose well the spot : it is not every marsh, 
 Or boggy nook, will suit. Wherever springs, 
 Not deep, nor difficult to trace, ooze out, 
 Drenching the ground ; and where, at little cost,. 
 
 * Elder, 
 
FEBRUARY. 43 
 
 A large extent of field may be laid dry, 
 Tis fitting there to draw the slanting drain, 
 And change the swamp into a grassy mead : 
 But where a head-spring long eludes the search, 
 And, though detected, as you ween, and led 
 In stony fetters, still breaks out, and spreads 
 A deep green patch amid your waving corn, 
 There yield to nature ; there the willow plant. 
 It will not draw the water off, but change 
 The water into gold : it needs nor plough, manure, 
 Nor weeding hand : fair seasons, drought, or rain, 
 Or cold, — to it all weather is alike. 
 A broad and open ditch drawn round the whole, 
 With here and there a trench transverse, will serve 
 At once for fence, and give a surface crust : 
 This all the culture that the willow seeks.. 
 
 The bending willow loves itself to see 
 Reflected in the stream ; there osier slips 
 Will thrive, and with reticulated roots 
 
4?4? BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Will fortify your bank ; let them not grow 
 
 To trees, but close and thick, that in the tangled wreck 
 
 Of winter-floods, the water-ouzeFs nest 
 
 May find concealment from the schoolboy's eye. 
 
 A bank so shielded needs no other fence, 
 
 No stony bulwark, nor the wattled sod, 
 
 Compared to this, the alder's warping roots 
 
 Afford ambiguous aid ; for on the stem, 
 
 Unyielding to the current, wintry floods 
 
 Impetuous bear, till, loosened by degrees, 
 
 The tree falls prone, and tears an open breach, 
 
 While harmlessly along the osiered bank 
 
 The swollen stream glides through the bending twigs. 
 
 Which feebly foil, and pliantly resist. 
 
 To name the uses of the willow tribes 
 Were endless task. The basket's various forms 
 For various purposes of household thrift ; 
 The wicker chair of size and shape antique ; 
 The rocking couch of sleeping infancy ; 
 
FEBRUARY. 45 
 
 These, with unnumbered other forms and kinds, 
 Give bread to hands unfit for other work. 
 The man bowed down with age, the sickly youth, 
 The widowed mother with her little child, 
 That lends its aid and loves to be employed, 
 Find,, from this easy toil, a help in need. 
 The blind man's blessing lights on him who plants 
 An osier bed : O I have seen a smile 
 Of mild content upon the assembled groupe 
 Of piteous visages, whose dexterous hands, 
 Taught by the public care, plied the light task ; 
 And I have heard, their hour of labour done, 
 That simple, sacred strain, By Babel's streams, 
 Rise from the sightless band, with such a power 
 Of heart-dissolving melody, — move such a host 
 Of strong o'erwhelming feelings in the breast, 
 As wrung a tear from most obdurate eyes. 
 
 Once I beheld a captive, whom these wars 
 Had made an inmate of the prison-house, 
 
46 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Cheering with wicker-work, (that almost seemed 
 To him a sort of play), his dreary hours. 
 I asked his story : in my native tongue, 
 (Long use had made it easy as his own), 
 He answered thus : — Before these wars began, 
 I dwelt upon the willowy banks of Loire : 
 I married one who, from my boyish days, 
 Had been my playmate. One morn, — I'll ne'er for- 
 get !— 
 While busy chusing out the prettiest twigs, 
 To warp a cradle for our child unborn, 
 We heard the tidings, that the conscript-lot 
 Had fallen on me ; it came like a death-kneiL 
 The mother perished, but the babe survived ; 
 And ere my parting day, his rocking couch 
 I made complete, and saw him sleeping smile, — 
 The smile that played upon the cheek of her 
 Who lay clay-cold. Alas ! the hour soon came 
 That forced my fettered arms to quit my child ; 
 And whether now he lives to deck with flowers 
 
FEBRUARY. 47 
 
 The sod upon his mother's grave, or lies 
 Beneath it by her side, I ne'er could learn : 
 I think he's gone, and now I only wish 
 For liberty and home, that I may see, 
 And stretch myself and die upon that grave. 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS, 
 
 MARCH. 
 
 Now lav 3 rocks wake the merry morn, 
 
 Aloft on dewy wing ; 
 The merle, in his noon-tide bower, 
 
 Makes woodland echoes ring. 
 
 Burn* 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 Ploughing — Larks — Books — Sea-fowl — Description 
 of an old husbandman — Directions in agriculture 
 by him, as to ploughing, rotation of crops, 8$c. — 
 Sowing — Harrowing — Paring and burning — A* 
 postrophe to Fire — Proposal for applying fre by 
 means of a roller — Culture of cottar's garden and 
 potatoe-plat — Hen and chickens — Bees — Spring 
 flowers— -Signs of good climate and soil. 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS, 
 
 MARCH. 
 
 JlXaised by the coming plough, the merry lark 
 
 Upsprings, and, soaring, joins the high-poised choirs 
 
 That carol far and near, in spiral flight 
 
 Some rising, some descending, some beyond 
 
 The visual ken, making the vaulted sky 
 
 One vast orchestra, full of joyful songs, 
 
 Of melodies, to which the heart of man, 
 
 Buoyant with praise, in unison responds. 
 
 If with the rooks, that on the ploughman's steps 
 
 Frequent alight, a flock of sea-fowl join, 
 
 Trust not the sky serene, but look for change : 
 
52 BRITISH GEORGICS, 
 
 Urge then your task, and let the sun go down 
 Upon your toil, nor loose the reeking yoke 
 Till in the east the rising stars appear. 
 
 A man I knew, bowed down with age and toil > 
 Who dwelt upon the pleasant banks of Clyde : 
 Deep-read he was in books, and was by some 
 A wizard deemed, because he would maintain, 
 That in the heavens the sun stood motionless, 
 And that the earth moved circling. He at eve, 
 When summer eves were long, would sit and mend 
 His horses gear, and teach me, glad to learn, 
 His rustic lore. u One ploughing, (oft he'd say), 
 P Ere hoof-prints frozen white indent the ground, 
 ge Is worth a score when winter frosts have ceased 
 " To penetrate the mould. Let then the plough 
 €t The sickle follow soon ; and when the fields 
 u Are bare, and mornings clear and ealm 
 e€ Begin with hoar-frost to encrust the sward, 
 u Plough down the whitened stubble, turning up 
 
MARCH. 53 
 
 tc The reeking tilth to feel the genial beam. 
 
 " 'Tis change from heat to cold, from cold to heat 
 
 €C Alternating, that, more than tillage, breaks 
 
 (C The obdurate soil : change is the very life 
 
 (< And soul of husbandry ; 'tis change of crops, 
 
 " By some rotation termed, that makes the ground 
 
 iC Perform its task with unexhausted power. 
 
 <e The broad-leaved plants, whose product is their root, 
 
 <c They least exhaust ; and next the legume tribes, 
 
 " With leaves less broad, and odoriferous flowers, 
 
 " That in the month of June make travellers pause ; 
 
 Cf These, through their porous and extended blades, 
 
 " Draw from the air a portion of their food. 
 
 u The plants with narrow and spear-pointed blades. 
 
 iC Of seed prolific, they exhaust the most ; 
 
 (C For from the suffering soil is chiefly drawn 
 
 €C Their sustenance. Two scourging crops of these 
 
 <: Who sows successively, defrauds the soil. 
 
 u But 'tis not only that the broad-leaved kinds 
 
 u Draw from the fostering earth a smaller share 
 
54* BRITISH GEQRGICS. 
 
 ts Of vegetable food ; no, of itself 
 
 " The different mode of action saves the power 
 
 " Exerted : things inanimate acquire 
 
 " New power by change, like those endowed with life* 
 
 u How light the flail swings in my weary hands, 
 
 u When sudden frost has midway down the ridge 
 
 iC The plough arrested ! so when from the barn 
 
 u I seek the field again, each labour there 
 
 tf Seems for a time like rest/'— ■ 
 
 Vicissitude, 
 In all its forms, how grateful ! — night and morn ; 
 The lengthening day foretelling summer flowers. 
 While close they lurk enfolded in their buds. 
 As yet invisible ; the twilight long 
 Of Summer's eve, that almost joins the dawn ; 
 The ruddy dawn, all hush, till blythsome springs 
 The earliest lark, and carols in the beam 
 That, upward slanting, gilds his quivering throat ; 
 f he noontide's fervid glare, when panting herds 
 
MARCH. 50 
 
 Betake them to the stream, lashing their sides ; 
 The harvest's rustle, and the lengthened nights 
 Of moonshine sweet ; the redbreast's song 
 Announcing Winter near ; and Winter's self, 
 With nights of fireside joys, homebred delights, 
 And days though short, yet not without their charm.; 
 
 Now, at the ridge end stands the well-filled sack. 
 And hive inverted, while the sower steps, 
 With loaded sheet, along the furrowed ridge, 
 And flings the seed with equal crescent sweep, 
 Rejoicing in the tide, and pleased to close 
 His blinded eyes, as on the adjoining ridge 
 The passing harrows raise the golden * dust. 
 
 W T hile dry and keen the east wind down the vale 
 Sweeps piercingly, and makes the violet-bud, 
 Shrinking, delay to spread its purple flower ; 
 
 * According to an old proverb, « An ounce of March dust 
 is Morth a pound of gold." 
 
56 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 While youngling rooks, rocked in their airy nests, 
 
 Importunate, with ceaseless cawing, tire 
 
 The ear, as on the swinging bough the dam 
 
 Scarce keeps her perch, and deals the new-gleaned seed, 
 
 Then is the time, upon the barren moor, 
 
 To prove your skill. Where'er, by nature dry, 
 
 It stretches far with coarsest grasses spread, 
 
 Upon a soil of shallow half-formed moss, 
 
 With gritty mould beneath, there pare the turf, 
 
 And lay it loosely up, in hollow heaps, 
 
 Triangular ; next kindle each, till far 
 
 The smoky clouds float rolling o'er the waste, 
 
 While plovers, screaming, sport amid the wreaths ; 
 
 The ashes duly spread, no need you have 
 
 For more manure, but instant urge the plough, 
 
 That when sweet May puts on her hawthorn crown. 
 
 The new-gained field, laid down in seemly drills^ 
 
 May ready for the turnip seed-time lie. 
 
 Nor is it solelv on the barren moor 
 
MARCH. 57 
 
 This mode is used ; the lea that oft before 
 Hath felt the opening share, much gain derives 
 From fire ; fields so prepared, whate'er the crop, 
 Are free from grub and insect, and each pest 
 That blights the farmer's hope. 
 
 All powerful Fire ! 
 The time is not remote, when, in the field 
 Of peaceful toil, (as now on bloody plains 
 The warrior's direst instrument thou art), 
 By all thou shalt be hailed the engine prime 
 Of husbandry ! Nor only in degrees, 
 So high as to calcine, thy power is proved ; 
 Upon the new-ploughed tilth, where seeds and germ,? 
 Of noxious herbs and embrio vermin lurk, 
 Thy subtle element will parch the springs 
 Of insect and of vegetable life. 
 
 But how to bend the still ascending power,- 
 And make it downward act., requires much thought} 
 
58 BRITISH GEOHG.ICS. 
 
 More knowledge in the chemic art abstruse, 
 Than falls to bard. Yet will I venturous dare. 
 And should I fail, perchance some better skilled 
 May light the flame, where I but strike a spark. — 
 Use not direct combustion to the tilth ; 
 Vain were your cost and pains in such attempt ; 
 Accumulate the power ; and what so fit 
 As iron to retain or to convey, 
 With equal energy or down or up, 
 The wondrous element, which, save when bound 
 In chains metallic, still to heaven aspires ? 
 And what more fitting form at once to hold 
 The kindled fuel, and apply the heat, 
 Than one well known, — the rolling cylinder, 
 Of bulk capacious ? Glowing o'er the field 
 Behold it slowly drawn, and see the ridge 
 Send, from the hissing track, a steaming cloud. 
 
 But these are schemes for men of wide domain*. 
 Which glad I leave to greet the lowly cot. 
 
MARCH. 59 
 
 No month demands more of the cottar's care 
 Than this ; — the garden and potatoe plat 
 Should now be delved, and, with no sparing hand. 
 Manured ; a task performed at twilight hours 
 When stated labour ends ; for now the day 
 Is equal with the night, and in the west 
 Faint lingers, with a pleasant parting smile. 
 The dibbling done, the dropping of the chips 
 Is left to little hands, well pleased to lend 
 Their feeble help : meanwhile the parents view 
 The finished work, anticipating years 
 When these weak hands will cherish their old age,, 
 And lay their heads in peace below the turf. 
 
 Oft in this month the cottage hen comes forth, 
 Attended by her brood, down-clad, yet poorly fenced 
 Against the eastern blast, that frequent brings 
 A shower of biting hail, which, as it falls, 
 The inexperienced younglings eager chace, 
 And peck the pattering drops : forbid not then 
 
60 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 The clamorous flock, in quest of crumbs, to haunt 
 The fireside nook : how pleasant 'tis to hear 
 The summoning call whene'er the prize is found ! 
 Or see the eager mother gather in 
 Her tiny justling brood, beneath the chair 
 On which the thrifty housewife sits and spins; 
 Or if, to approach this citadel, intruding cur 
 Presume, then see her issue forth, with plumes 
 All ruffled, and attack the foe, and drive 
 Him, howling, out of doors, drooping his tail, 
 And shaking, as he runs, his well-pounced ears, 
 
 This renovating season, too, calls forth 
 The humming tribes ; for now the willow leaves. 
 And downy flowers on river-loving palms, 
 Afford materials for the curious cell ; 
 And oft, even in this chill ambiguous month* 
 The labourers return with loaded thighs. 
 Therefore by day their gateway-porch enlarge. 
 But still at eve let it be closed secure, 
 
MARCH. 61 
 
 Lest nightly winds, now in the brooding time. 
 Should, sifting in, the genial process mar. 
 Nor now withhold, if much reduced their store, 
 The needful loan ; for yet few flowers are founds 
 And these quite honeyless, — the daisy fair, 
 Basking upon some sunny-sheltered slope, 
 The snow-drops, and the violets that couch 
 On woody but still shadeless banks, and lead, 
 With fragrance wafted from their purpled bed, 
 The wandering step to hail the vernal joy, 
 The virgin breath of Spring, her fairest bloom, 
 
 No surer sign is known of climate mild, 
 And kindly soil, than early woodland flowers, 
 And chief the violet : it marks a dry, 
 A crumbling, active mould ; nor less the thorn, 
 "Neath which it blows, if early clothed with leaves, 
 Screening from prying eyes the thrush's nest, 
 Bespeaks a genial soil,, and clime benign. 
 
62 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 The early song of birds, if clear and full, 
 Ere yet the primrose blow, they too bespeak 
 A smiling sky ; but of them all, the lark 
 Affords the surest signs —if high he soar, 
 And higher still, as if he circling scaled 
 Some airy pyramid, until his lessening bulk 
 At last eludes the weary sight, while faint 
 His song at times still meets the doubting sense, 
 Be sure the higher regions of the air, 
 Around the buoyant chorister, breathe soft, 
 Breathe placidly ; — and when the welkin's warm, 
 Nor sudden frost nor rain will harm your fields. 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS, 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 Now blooms the lily by the bank, 
 The primrose down the brae, 
 
 The hawthorns budding in the glen, 
 And milk-white is the she. 
 
 Burns. 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 Address to April — Characteristics of the month — * 
 Time for baiiey sowing — Steeping of seed — Fences 
 —Condemnation of the practice of smashing hedges 
 *— Faults in the mode of hedge-planting pointed out 
 —A better mode recommended— Rustic courtship — ■ 
 A wedding. 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 I hrough boughs still leafless, or through foliage thin, 
 The sloping primrose-bed lies fair exposed, 
 Begemmed with simple flowers, gladdening the sight,. 
 Hail ! month of buds and blooms, of shooting blades 
 That spread the fallow fields with vivid green ! 
 Hail, Nature's birth-time ! hail, ye gentle showers 
 That, in the opening blossoms, lie like tears 
 In infant eyes, soon giving place to smiles, 
 To sunny smiles of peace, of joy serene. 
 How calm the woods ! as if they all had stilled 
 Their waving branches, listening to the songs 
 
 E 
 
66' BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Of love-tuned ditties,, warbled sweet from thorns 
 Enwreathed with forming flowers : all other sounds 
 Are hushed, — unless, scared from the brooding task. 
 By man's approach, the sudden whirring wing 
 Betray the bush where hangs half hid the nest : 
 Return, poor bird ! I'll find another path, 
 Until thy pleasing task be done ; return, 
 ('Tis not the spoiler's step), complete thy work. 
 Cheered by thy twig-perched mate : enough for mt 
 To hear his song, far sweeter there, I ween, 
 Than, through the wirey grate, a captive's lay. 
 
 Now clover fields expand the luscious bladc\ 
 But tender still, while, on the upland leas, 
 The 3'eanlings stagger round their bleating dams : 
 The orchard's drooping boughs put forth their blooms \ 
 Purple of loveliest hue yblent with white : 
 The sweetbrier's buds unfold ; and perfumed gales 
 A lullaby o'er Nature's cradle sigh. 
 
APRIL. 67 
 
 Soon as the earliest swallow skims the mead, 
 The barley sowing is by some begun ; 
 While others wait until her clay-built nest, 
 Completed, in the window-corner hang; 
 Or till the schoolboy mock the cuckoo's note. 
 He that would reap a plenteous barley crop, 
 Should in saline infusion drench the seed; 
 For thus the nascent embryo, ere it shoots, 
 Is fortified against the ravenous grub. 
 When so prepared, no dwarfish patch deforms 
 The field irregular, but every ridge 
 Erects its bristling awns, equal in height, 
 Like steely points by marshalled phalanx reared. 
 
 The seed-time closed, the fences, hedge and ditch; 
 Demand your tendance ; first the ditches clear, 
 And then, with cautious hand, the hedges lop,. 
 Broad at the bottom, tapering by degrees, 
 Ass to the. top the shears or bill ascend. 
 
6S BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Some husbandmen, as if by rage impelled, 
 With unrelenting hatchets, level low 
 Each full-grown hedge, just as it gains its prime,— 
 Now in its full blown beauty : withering, soiled, 
 The flowery branches lie, with here and there 
 A ruined nest inverted, while behold ! — 
 'Stead of the sheltering thicket stretching fair,— 
 A row of stumps, from which, in future years. 
 Another hedge, of weaker stem and twig, 
 May spring again to shield the fenceless croft, 
 And whence this love of massacre ! this rage 
 Perverse, unnatural, so near a-kin 
 To that propensity, infecting some 
 Who think, — that Nature gave the noble. steed 
 A spine six joints too long; that ears acute 
 Deform the head, and should be roundly pared ; 
 And that the neck surmounted by the mane, 
 The cloud where dwells the thunder, is improved 
 When modelled by the bristling back of hog ! 
 
MARCH, 69 
 
 Oft times, 'tis true, a single row of thorns 
 Is found a feeble fence ; but to destroy 
 That row, is not the mode to give it strength. 
 The error lies in planting single rows ; — 
 And, heedless of variety of soil, 
 Clay, sand, or gravel, — dry, or wet, or cold,~ 
 Planting the hawthorn shrub as fit for all. 
 In marshy soils, the hawthorn, covered o'er 
 With lichen gray, appears an aged bush 
 While only young, and in this bloomy month 
 Puts forth no blossom : stuntedly it grows. 
 With sickly sprays in dusky foliage robed. 
 
 Nor is the single stripe preferred for thrift 
 Of ground : observe the space it occupies ; — 
 The bank, which common custom thus allots. 
 Contains full oft a space from side to side 
 Superfluous, which, if used aright, would give 
 A fence impregnable to herd or flock. 
 The genius of the thorn is misconceived:? 
 
70 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 It loves not solitude ; like all the tribes 
 With prickles armed, the under-growth of woods> 
 It thrives most vigorously when interwarped 
 With kindred, not with sister shrubs : Observe, 
 In woodland glades, the thickets that present 
 The closest barrier to the rambling step, 
 Are those where shrubs of various kinds combine. 
 A hedge should be a thicket lengthened out, 
 Where, though one plant may fail (and if one plant 
 In hedges of a single file decay, 
 The flaw is rarely cured), 'tis scarcely missed, 
 Let then your bulging quickset-bank be clothed, 
 From side to side, with shrubs of various kinds. 
 Let hawthorn chief prevail, but with it mix 
 The bramble with its stretching limbs ; the brier. 
 Whose prickly leaves and twigs resent the touch 
 Of hostile mouth ; the sloethorn's hardy spray, 
 Unbending, armed with formidable prongs ; 
 The plumtree wild, the willow, and the whin, 
 Of brilliant golden hue ; where ; blossom«perched ; 
 
APRIL. 71 
 
 Carols the linnet * of the roseat plumes. 
 
 Let these, united in confusion strong, 
 
 Grow up unchecked, save at the bounding line ] 
 
 There place your foot, let not a twig encroach. 
 
 Thus on a space, not more than what you wast^ 
 
 In fostering, with thriftless care and cost, 
 
 A single row of plants, (which, like a chaim 
 
 Is useless if a single link give way), 
 
 You rear a verdant mound,, combining strength 
 
 And durability with beauty's charm, — 
 
 Displaying, from the time of opening buds 
 
 Till ripening grain wave girt in its embrace, 
 
 An ever- varying wreath of flowers and fruits, 
 
 Which, to an eye that's fanciful, might seem 
 
 A crown encircling Ceres' rustling head, 
 
 Now, 'mid the general glow of opening blooms, 
 Coy maidens blush consent, nor slight the gift, 
 Prom neighbouring fair brought home, till now refused. 
 
 * The rose linnet. 
 
72 BRITISH GEOEGICS. 
 
 Swains, seize the sunny hours to make your hay. 
 For woman's smiles are fickle as the sky : 
 Bespeak the priest, bespeak the minstrel too, 
 Ere May, to wedlock hostile, stop the banns. 
 
 The appointed day arrives, a blythesome day 
 Of festive jollity ; yet not devoid 
 Of soft regret to her about to leave 
 A parent's roof; yes, at the word join hands, 
 A tear reluctant starts, as she beholds 
 Her mother's looks, her father's silvery hairs. 
 But serious thoughts take flight, when from the bariK 
 Soon as the bands are knit, a jocund sound 
 Strikes briskly up, and nimble feet beat fast 
 Upon the earthen floor. Through many a reel, 
 With various steps uncouth, some new, some old, 
 Some all the dancer's own. with Highland flings 
 Not void of grace, the lads and lasses strive 
 To dance each other down ; and oft, when quite 
 Forespent, the fingers merrily cracked, the bound.. 
 
APRIL. 7 
 
 The rallying shout well-timed, and sudden change 
 To sprightlier tune, revive the flagging foot, 
 And make it feel as if it tripped in air. 
 
 When all are tired, and all his stock of reels 
 The minstrel, o'er and o'er again, has run, 
 The cheering flaggon circles round ; meanwhile 
 A softened tune, and slower measure, flows 
 Soft from the strings, and stills the boisterous joy, 
 May be, The Bonny Broom of Cowdenhiows, 
 (If simply played, though not with master hand), 
 Or Patie's Mill, or Bush aboon Traqnair, 
 Inspire a tranquil gladness through the breast ; 
 Or that most mournful strain, the sad Lament 
 For Floddenfield, drives mirth from every face, 
 And makes the firmest heart strive hard to curb 
 The rising tear, — till, with unpausing bow, 
 The blythe strathspey springs up, reminding some 
 Of nights when Gow's old arm, (nor old the tale) 5 
 Unceasing, save when reeking cans went rounds 
 
74} BRITISH GEORGICS- 
 
 Made heart and heel leap light as bounding roe, 
 Alas ! no more shall we behold that look 
 So venerable, yet so blent with mirth, 
 And festive joy sedate ; that ancient garb 
 Unvaried, — tartan hose, and bonnet blue ! 
 No more shall Beauty's partial eye draw forth 
 The full intoxication of his strain, 
 Mellifluous, strong, exuberantly rich ! 
 No more, amid the pauses of the dance a 
 Shall he repeat those measures, that in days- 
 Of other years, could soothe a failing prince, 
 And light his visage with a transient smile* 
 Of melancholy joy, — like autumn sun 
 Gilding a sere tree with a passing beam f 
 Or play to sportive children on the green 
 Dancing at gloamin hour ; or willing cheer, 
 With strains unbought, the shepherd s bridal-day ! 
 
 But light now failing, glimmering candles shine 
 I# ready chandeliers of moulded clay 
 
APRIL. 75 
 
 Stuck round the walls, displaying to the view 
 The ceiling, rich with cobweb-drapery hung. 
 Meanwhile, from mill and smiddy, field and barn^ 
 Fresh groupes come hastening in : but of them all 
 The miller bears the gree, as rafter-high 
 He leaps, and, lighting, shakes a dusty cloud all round, 
 
 In harmless merriment protracted long, 
 The hours glide by. At last, the stocking thrown, 
 And duly every gossip rite performed, 
 Youths, maids, and matrons, take their several ways i 
 While drouthy carles, waiting for the moon, 
 Sit down again, and quaff till day-light dawn, 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 MAY. 
 
 Ilerba comis, iellus nitet herbis,frondibu$ arbor y 
 Luxuriat lostum Iceta per arva pecus. 
 
 Buchanan. 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 Address to May-Some characteristics of the month— 
 Clover ridge — Corncraik — Mowing for the stall 
 recommended — Stall-feeding, unless in winter, un- 
 known in former times — Herd-boy— His hut and 
 occupations — Old manners giving way to the en- 
 croachments of trade — Some remnants still to be 
 found — Improvement of 7nosses — Effects of this 
 "improvement in respect to certain birds — Descrip- 
 tion of a family removing to a city — Miserable ef- 
 fects of the change — Appeal to landed proprietors 
 on this subject— ~Hints for chusing a farm. 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 MAY, 
 
 OWEET month t thy locks with bursting buds be* 
 
 gemmed, 
 With opening hyacinths and hawthorn flowers^ 
 Fair still thou art, though showers bedim thine eye, 
 The cloud soon leaves thy brow, and mild the suri 
 Looks out with watery beam, looks out and smiles. 
 
 Light now the breezes sigh along the vale/ 
 Gently they wave the rivulet's cascade, 
 And bend the flowers, making the lily stoop 
 As if to kiss its image in the stream> 
 
80 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Or curl, with gentlest breath, the glassy pool, 
 Aiding the treachery of the mimic fly, 
 While, crouching warily behind a bush, 
 The angler screened, with keenest eye intent, 
 Awaits the sudden rising of the trout : — 
 Down dips the feathery lure ; the quivering rod 
 Bends low : in vain the well-hooked captive strives 
 To break the yielding line : his side upturned, 
 Ashore he's drawn, and, on the mossy bank 
 Weltering, he dyes the primrose with his blood* 
 
 How gay the fields ! arrayed in lovely green 
 Of various tint ; but deepest of them all 
 The clover ridge, where now at eve is heard 
 The corncraik's harsh, yet not unpleasing call., 
 Oft pausing, still renewed from place to place. 
 Vain all attempts to trace her by her note ; 
 For, when the spot whence last it came is reached- 
 Again 'tis heard hoarse harping far behind,—' 
 Till silenced by the mower's rasping stone. 
 
MAW SI 
 
 No use to which the clover field is put 
 Repays so well as mowing for the stall, 
 For not a blade is wasted ; while your herds. 
 Screened from the sun, and from molesting bite 
 Of vexing flies, peaceful enjoy the cool 
 And fragrant meal, or drowsy chew the cud. 
 
 In times of old, stall-feeding was unknown. 
 Save during winter months : inciosures then 
 Were rare, and every hill-side, every lea, 
 And broomy bank, was vocal with the notes 
 Of rustic pipe, or rudely chaunted rhymes, 
 Responsive echoed wild from herd to herd *, 
 Tending their charge of mingled sheep and kine. 
 And still there may be seen, on Scotia's braes, 
 The shepherd boy, with horn, and club, and dog,. 
 Couched on the chequered plaid, and, at a side, 
 
 * Used here in the Scotch sense, as signifying the keeter 
 of the herd. 
 
82 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 His little turf-built hut, with boughs o'erlaid, 
 Wherein are placed, from sudden shower secure, 
 The Life of Wallace wight, with goodly store 
 Of ballads old and new, which oft he cons. 
 And thus, in pleasing solitude, he spends 
 His harmless, not unprofitable hours. 
 Till, by his brazen dial warned, he drives 
 Homeward, at noon, his flock. 
 
 O simple times 
 Of peaceful innocence, fast giving way 
 To Trade's encroaching power ! Yes, Trade ere long 
 Will drive each older custom from the land, 
 Will drive each generous passion from the breast. 
 Even love itself, that in the peasant's heart 
 Was wont to glow with pure and constant flame^ 
 Now burns less purely than in times of old ; 
 A fatal sign. Yet still the (C try sting thorn" 
 Is seen to bloom elsewhere than in the song 
 Of youthful bard : Beneath the greenwood tree. 
 
MAY. 83 
 
 When on May morning, maids, to gather dew, 
 
 Hie to the primrose bank, the mutual vow 
 
 Is pledged, and hallowed kept, though absence, war, 
 
 And, keenest pang ! supposed forgetfulness, 
 
 Conspire to shake -the true and trusting heart : 
 
 Still in the gloamin, by the river side, 
 
 When calmness sleeps upon the smooth expanse, 
 
 And all is hush, save plunge of sportive trout, 
 
 (Propitious hour !) fond lovers meet and stray, 
 
 Forgetful of the time, till, from below 
 
 The adverse bank, peeps out the warning moon* 
 
 In moorland farms, the season now invites 
 Him, who would change the heath-flower for the pea a 
 To draw his drains both deep and broad, with sides 
 Of easy slope. Seldom three ells in width, 
 And two in depth, are, by experience, found 
 Unsuitable, Where mosses level stretch, 
 With hoary cannachs bending in the blast, 
 There wider* -deeper scoop : far slowly there — 
 
SJ? BRITISH GEORGICS» 
 
 The sable current flows : yet, to an eye 
 That's skilful ; rarely will there want some line,. 
 Which, though descending with a gentle slope. 
 Scarcely perceptible, will yet afford 
 A fall sufficient to lay dry the whole. 
 
 But though laid dry, 'tis yet unfit to bear 
 The labouring team, and, for some years, the spade 
 Must turn the spongy soil, and form the ridge. 
 Chiefly with lime, profusely scattered, mix 
 The surface soil, while in a moistened state ; 
 For, when devoid of moisture, moss resists 
 The caustic power, and lies a useless pulp. 
 
 From desarts thus reclaimed, some vainly hope 
 At once to reap a rustling crop, but find 
 Frustrate their hopes, and seed and labour lost, 
 During the first two years potatoes yield 
 A sure increase, abundant ; for their leaves 
 Luxuriant shade the open soil* that else? 
 
MAY. SJ 
 
 Unable to retain or dew or genial shower. 
 
 Arid and steril lies. Besides, the plants 
 
 Of taller stem require a firmer hold 
 
 Than moss affords, which, but by slow degrees 
 
 Subsiding into solid mould, displays 
 
 A waste transformed into a waving plain. 
 
 No more the heath-fowl there her nestling brood 
 Fosters, no more the dreary plover plains ; 
 And when, from frozen regions of the pole, 
 The wintry bittern, to his wonted haunt, 
 On weary wing, returns, he finds the marsh 
 Into a joyless stubble ridge transformed, 
 And mounts again to seek some watery wild, 
 
 These tribes, exiled, another resting place, 
 Adapted to their wants, soon find : but man, 
 When forced his dwelling-place to leave, the field? 
 Which he and his forefathers ploughed, and seeks* 
 A] as ! to find some other home of peace. 
 
S6i BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Where he may live a tiller of the ground, 
 
 He seeks in vain ; sad the reverse which he 
 
 And his are doomed to prove ! — no choice is left 
 
 But exile to a foreign shore, or, worse, 
 
 To darksome city lane. Behold the band, 
 
 With some small remnant of their household gear, 
 
 Drawn by the horse which once they called their own ;■ 
 
 Bejiold them take a last look, of that roof, 
 
 From whence no smoke ascends, and onward move 
 
 In silence ; whilst each passing object wakes 
 
 Remembrances of scenes that never more 
 
 Will glad their hearts ; — the mill, the smiddy blaze 
 
 So cheerful, and the doubling hammer's clink, 
 
 Now dying on the ear,, now on the breeze 
 
 Heard once again. Ah, why that joyous bark 
 
 Precursive !. Little dost thou ween, poor things 
 
 That ne'er again the slowly-stepping herd, 
 
 And nibbling flock, thou It drive a-field or home ; 
 
 That ne'er again thou'lt chace the limping hare, 
 
 While, knowing well thy eager yelp, she scorns 
 
MAY. &?• 
 
 Thy utmost Speed, and, from the thistly lea r 
 Espies, secure, thy puzzled fruitless search. 
 Now noisome alleys, and the crowded street* 
 Thy haunts must be. 
 
 But soon thou wilt forget 
 The cheerful fields ; not so the infant train, 
 Thy playmates gay ; not so the exiles old, 
 Who thought at last, below yon church-yard elms,. 
 Now fading from their view, to lay their heads 
 In peace ; they, old and young, ne'er will forget 
 Their former happy home. Oft from their high 
 And wretched roof, they look, trying, through clouds 
 Of driving smoke, a glimpse of the green fields . 
 To gain, while, at the view, they feel their hearts. 
 Sinking within them. Ah ! these vain regrets 
 For happiness, that now is but a dream, 
 Are not their sorest evil ; no, disease 
 (The harvest of the crowded house of toil) 
 Approaches, withering first the opening bloom 
 
88 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Of infant years : — As wild flowers, which the hand 
 
 Of roaming botanist, from some sweet bank, 
 
 Remote in woodland solitudes, transplants 
 
 To his rank garden mould, soon drop the head, 
 
 And languish till they die ; so, pining, sink 
 
 These little ones. O ! that heart-wringing cry, 
 
 To take them home, — to take them home again,-—. 
 
 Their ceaseless, death-bed cry, poor innocents ! 
 
 Repeated while the power to lisp is theirs ;— 
 
 Alas ! that home no more shall ye behold, 
 
 No more along the thistly lea pursue 
 
 The flying down ; no more, transported, rush 
 
 From learning's humble door, with play-mates blythe, 
 
 To gather pebbles in the shallow burn ; 
 
 Death is your comrade now, the grave your home, 
 
 O ye, whose princely territories stretch 
 Afar o'er hill and dale, think, — ere ye sweep 
 Your ancient tenantry from off the land,— 
 That swollen rent-rolls are too dearly bought. 
 
MAY, 8£ 
 
 By that enormous misery which ye hurl 
 On ruined hundreds, to make way for one* 
 
 Some ousted husbandmen, when other lands 
 Are in their power, reject the golden boon, 
 And often rue the occasion lost, deterred 
 Too easily by fear, clothed in the garb 
 Of prudence. Stunted crops, a scanty sward, 
 Though doubtful signs, the over-prudent scare 
 From lands oft times intrinsically rich. 
 Some signs there are by nature pointed out, 
 And not dependant on the care of man, 
 All things disguising ; these will not mislead, 
 These you may trust. The herbs, hung round with bells, 
 Denote, unerringly, a soil that's dry ; 
 And chief the fox-glove flower, wherein the bee 
 Diving, concealed, extracts ambrosial food. 
 The blue-bell, too, where'er the soil is moist, 
 Ascends the sheep-fold's turfy bound, and shakes 
 Its pretty flowerets in the July gale. 
 
90 BRITISH GEORGICSa 
 
 Profusion even of weeds, o'ertopping rank 
 The half-choaked growth of grain or pulse., 
 Though most unsightly to the well-skilled eye 
 Of husbandry, are signs, that in the soil 
 There is a vigorous, though neglected power. 
 Nor be forgot the broom's thick clustering blow, 
 Whose blazing brightness on a day of June 
 Dazzles, the eye, making it fain to rest 
 On flowers of soberer hue : sometimes with growtfe. 
 So strong, luxuriantly strong, it shoots, 
 That scarcely o'er the golden forest peers* 
 The wildered heifer's horns, or higher crest 
 Of proudly neighing steed* Doubt not that there 
 A native pith of soil, a native warmth 
 And kindliness resides ; rely that there 
 Grain, pulse, or root, whate'er the crop, will yield 
 An early and exuberant increase. 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS, 
 
 JUNE. 
 
 O'er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eye 
 Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns ; and all 
 From pole to pole is undistinguished blaze. 
 
 Thomson 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 Stillness of noon, and general rest of nature — Perni- 
 cious consequences, to men and cattle, of labour in 
 the heat of the day^-Twenty hours of light at 
 Mid-summer — Recommendation that the old custom 
 of labourers sleeping at mid-day should be revived 
 —Description of the dawn — Drill-ploughing of 
 beanfeld — Reason of planting beans in drills, and 
 culmiferous plants in the broadest way — Slopes best 
 for beans — Time for weeding turnip-field with the 
 plough — with the lioe — Cut down weeds on leas be-* 
 fore seed formed — Some herbs that are classed with 
 weeds ought to be spared — The aromatic tribes, 
 mint, sage, thyme, of use against insects — Burning 
 birch, broom, and bourtree blossoms between ridges 
 of green crops a remedy against the fly — Plentiful 
 manure the best preventive — Hay-making ; part of 
 grass crop should be used for stall-feeding — Want 
 <f shade hurtful to flocks — Plantations in sheep- 
 walks — Places ft to be planted — Destruction of 
 ancient foi'ests lamented — Ettrick — Tor wood — A- 
 jpostrophe on the Battle of Bannockburn. 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 MAY. 
 
 J3E Neath the fervour of the noon-tide beam. 
 All Nature's works in placid stillness pauses- 
 Save man, and his joint labourer the horse, 
 The bee, and all the idly busy insect tribes ; 
 Even 'mid the deepest groves, the merry bird 
 Sits drowsily, with head beneath its wing ; 
 Each woodland note is hushed, save when the plaint 
 Of cooing ring-dove steals upon the ear. 
 Let man the lesson read, and learn to know 
 The seasons of the day, as of the year ; 
 To mark the hours for labour and for tqs% 
 
94? BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Nor sacrifice convenience, ease, and healthy 
 
 To method's rules., which only then are wise. 
 
 When bending to the changing year's decree. 
 
 The shortened reign of night, the early peep 
 
 # 
 Of dawn, protracted long, yet giving light 
 
 Abundant for the labours of the field, 
 
 Point out the hours for toil. Wiry should the plough, 
 
 Or brandished hoe, gleam in the sultry ray, 
 
 When man and beast, beneath a load of heat, 
 
 Oft panting stop oppressed. Hence Fever comes. 
 
 And hence the deadly sun-stroke ; hence old age. 
 
 And prematurely lyart locks, to man ; 
 
 And hence (what, in these calculating times,, 
 
 Will seem of more account) an unseen loss, 
 
 Proportioned to the cattle's shortened years. 
 
 Wiser than we, our fathers, ere the dawn, 
 Were in the field, and, when the sultry hours 
 Approached, enjoyed soft sleep. Let us be taught 
 By them ; by nature lengthening out our day 
 
JUNE* 95 
 
 To twice ten hours, — and labour in the cool. 
 Yes, — let the husbandman arouse to toil, 
 While yet the sky a deep-empurpled tint 
 Northward displays, — before the corncraik's call 
 In mist- veiled meads awake the nestling lark, 
 To hail the dawn. Sweet is the dubious bound 
 Of night and morn, when spray and plant are drenched 
 In dew ; sweet now the odour-breathing birch, 
 The gaudy broom, the orchard's blushing boughs, 
 The milk-white thorn, on which the blackbird roosts, 
 Till light he shakes his ruffling plumes, and chaunts 
 His roundelay; and sweet the bean-field rows, 
 'Tween which the drilling plough is artful steered, 
 Shaking the dew-drop gently from the bloom. 
 
 See how the blooms around each bladed shoot, 
 From root to summit cluster thick the stalk ; 
 (A beauteous sceptre fit for Ceres' hand) — 
 Then mark the contrast of the ear-crowned stalk, 
 Barren below, and in that difference learn, 
 
9,6 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Why 5 'twixt the bean-field's marshalled ranks, is left- 
 Free space for air and sun ; and why the spikes 
 Of bearded grain wave equal o'er the plain. 
 Hence, too, this lesson learn, — the sloping croft 
 Suits well the podded kind ; for there soft Zephyr* 
 Kissing the lowest flowers, refreshes all, 
 Then waves his lingering wings, wafting afar 
 A balmy odour : struck with new delight, 
 The toil-worn traveller pauses on his w~ay # 
 And, with a smile of pleasure, snuffs the air* 
 Perhaps some veteran, whom Egyptic sands 
 Have reft of sight, (O ! when will warfare cease ?J 
 Leans on his staff, and wishes that but once. 
 But only once, he could behold these blooms^ 
 Which now recal his father's little field. 
 
 Now is the time, before the thistle blow, 
 While gule is in the flower, and charlock breathes 
 Its cloying scent around, the weeding task 
 To urge between the turnip's verdant ranks- 
 

 JUSE. 97 
 
 Emburied by the double mould-board, down 
 On either side the noxious race are laid, 
 While, by the waves of crumbling earth heaved up, 
 The plants are cherished. 
 
 Some the hoe prefer, 
 Which female hands, or, if of lighter make, 
 The childish grasp can wield ; even his small hands, 
 Of years so simple, that he grieves to hurt 
 The pretty flowers, which, strung about his neck, 
 He wears with more delight than kings their crowns. 
 Thus, too, the crop itself (soon as the plants 
 Four leaves spread fully forth) is duly thinned. 
 
 Besides the plough and hoe, the sweeping scythe 
 Will much avail to wage the weeding war. — i 
 If o'er your leas the yellov/ ragwort spread 
 A gaudy forest ; or the seedy dock 
 Uprear its stalk prolific ; or the tribe 
 Of thistles fenced with prickly arms,-—spar3 m% 
 
93 BRITISH GEORGICS* 
 
 The emblem dear, but ruthless lay it low, 
 
 With all its brother cumberers of the ground : 
 
 For, if allowed to stand, the down-winged seed 
 
 Flies far, a pastime to your playful elves, 
 
 To you a cause of meikle loss and bale. 
 
 Let none of all the intrusive race even form 
 
 Their seed; for know, — the fructifying stage 
 
 Of vegetation most exhausts the soil ; 
 
 And, though cut down before they shed their fruit. 
 
 Mixed with the compost mound, they but create 
 
 A magazine of poisons for your fields. 
 
 Some herbs, that, to the unobserving eye 
 Of ignorance, are prized of small account. 
 Or classed with weeds, deserve a better name. 
 And should be spared : The aromatic tribes, 
 Mint, sage, and flowery thyme, are sovereign antidotes' 
 Against the insect pest, powerful though small, 
 Blighting at once the green leaf and the grain. 
 Seldom I've seen this ruin ; where the buzz 
 
JUNE. 
 
 W 
 
 Of numerous bees comes from the wild-thyme balk, 
 
 That parts the various crops. The smaller race 
 
 Of insects shun most odours : hence our sires 
 
 Around and in their gardens,, wont to rear 
 
 The strong- fumed elder ; hence (the cause forgot) 
 
 Our garden borders still with boxwood fringed. 
 
 But if the tiny brood, — viewless at first* 
 
 Save by the microscopic power, that opes 
 
 The vast invisible of Nature's works, 
 
 Minutely grand, — have gathered strength to foil 
 
 Such weak annoyance ; fear not round your fields. 
 
 Or even between your ridges, green and full 
 
 v Of sap, to kindle heaps of birchen twigs • 
 
 And bitter broom, mixed with the dark green leaves 
 
 And blossoms white of elder ; — thick a cloud 
 
 Of acrid smoke, in rolling wreaths, invests 
 
 The death-struck hosts, galling the gazer's eye. 
 
 Thus proving, with what potency malign 
 
 Into the filmy organs of the foe 
 
 Diminutive ; it needs must penetrate, 
 
100 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 But better the prevention than the cure ; 
 And for prevention nought so much avails 
 As plentiful manure ; for then the seeds 
 Burst vigorous from their cells, nor linger long^, 
 Blanched and enervated beneath the mould : 
 Quickly the blades the vivifying air 
 Inhale, assume a deep and deeper green, 
 And with such constant lusty growth expand 
 The leaf luxuriant, that no rest is found, 
 No tranquil nidus for the adhesive eggs, 
 Which thus, for ever marred, abortive prove, 
 
 Such is the culture of the verdant crops,, 
 That in the wintry months fresh food supply 
 To herd and flock, — most grateful interchange 
 With strawy sheaf thrown in from time to time, 
 Or fragrant armful. 
 
 Hark ! the whetstone rasps 
 Along the mower's scythe ; for now's the time 
 
JUNE, 101 
 
 To reap the grassy mead, — ere yet the bee 
 Into the purple clover-flower can shoot 
 Her searching tube, — ere yet the playful imp 
 Chacing, waist-deep, the restless butterfly, 
 Gan from the red flowers suck the honied juice | 
 Now every stalk and leaf is full distent 
 With richest sap ; nor is the latent strength, 
 By which a second growth rivals the first, 
 Exhausted by the eJJlorescent stage. 
 
 Though other field- works at the twilight break 
 Of day begin, shunning the sultry hours, 
 Hay-harvest, first and last, demands the sun. 
 Not till his thirsty beam have sipped the dew 
 That glistering returns his morning smile, 
 The mower's scythe be heard : then equal ranged^ 
 With crescent strokes that closely graze the ground^ 
 The stooping band extend the ridgy swathes. 
 Ah ! spare, thou pitying swain, a ridge-breadth round 
 The partridge nest ! so shall no new-come lord-— 
 
102 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 To ope a vista to some ivied tower— 
 
 Thy cottage raze ; but when the day is done,, 
 
 Still shall the twig-bo wered seat, on which thy sire 
 
 Was wont at even-tide to talk-, invite 
 
 Thy weary limbs ; there peace and health shall bless 
 
 Thy frugal fare, served by the unhired hand, 
 
 That seeks no wages save a parent's smile, 
 
 To dry the swathe, and yet to save the sap, 
 Should be your double aim. Some, void of skill, 
 Believe, that by long bleaching in the sun 
 Their end is gained ; but thus they scorch, not dry, 
 The fragrant wreaths. This ancient error shun. 
 
 Soon as the scythes the mid- way field have reached, 
 See old and young at distance due succeed ; 
 The waning spinstress, and the buxom maid ; 
 The boy rejoicing in the important toil, 
 And striving, though with yet unequal strength, 
 To match the best,— all, with inverted rakes, 
 
JUN& 103 
 
 Toss the fresh wreath, and ted it lightly round, 
 With gleesome hearts, feeling the toil no task. 
 The very dogs seem smitten with the joy 
 Of this new merriment, this flowery work, 
 And, deeming all in sport, run, bark, and frisk, 
 Or toss, with buried snout, the tedded flakes. 
 
 Full soon the rake gains on the creeping scythe | 
 And now the sun, with westering wheel, begins 
 To slope his course, when, half forespent, the band 
 Bethink themselves, 'tis time to pause from toil. 
 Straight to the hedge-row shade, with willing step, 
 Though slow, they wend, — and, seated on the sward 
 In peaceful circle, join the gray-haired sire, 
 In asking God to bless the daily bread 
 He bounteously bestows ! with cheerful hearts 
 Their bread they eat, nor other beverage seek 
 Than what the milky pail unstinted gives. 
 Finished the brief repast, and thanks returned, 
 Some sleep the hour away, some talk and jeer, 
 
104< BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 While willing laughter, on the thread-bare jest, 
 Bestows the meed of wit ; others, apart, 
 Hold whispering converse with the lass they love, 
 The younger wights, with busy eye, explore 
 The foggage, where, concealed with meikle art, 
 The brown bee's cups in rude-formed clusters lie : 
 Or, should they find a sable swarm's retreat, 
 Deep earthed, the mining spade must lay it bare. 
 Nor unresisting do the inmates yield 
 Their little state ; forth, at the first alarm, 
 They swarming rush, and chacing, in long train> 
 The flying foe, deal sharp,- not deadly wounds. 
 Rallied, at length, the assailants to the charge, 
 With doublets doffed, attack the stinging tribes, 
 And leaguering the porch, ruthless beat down 
 The issuing hosts, till, by degrees reduced, 
 The feeble remnant, 'mid their fated homes, 
 Await their hapless doom ; — the insidious mine 
 Meanwhile proceeds, and soon (like human states)* 
 
JUNE. 105 
 
 The little kingdom and its treasures lie 
 Prostrate and ruined 'neath the spoiler's hand. 
 
 While thus glides on the mid-day hour, the pause 
 Has not been useless ; diligent the sun 
 (The time though short) already has prepared 
 The scattered verdure for the windrow waves. 
 First flat and low, till,, as the day declines, 
 Now tossed, now side-long rolled, by many a rake^ 
 Accumulating slow, waist high they swell, 
 One thing forget not, — that athwart the breeze 
 The rows be laid ; for thus all through the heaps, 
 Quite loosely piled, the drying influence sifts. 
 Some leave them here to imbibe the midnight dews^ 
 Or drenching shower, and day by day repeat, 
 For three full suns, the same unvaried course, 
 Be wiser thou, proportioning the time,, 
 And quantity of labour, to the kind 
 And richness of the crop : Some grasses need 
 Much more of sun and breeze ; the clover kinds? 
 
106 BRITISH GEQRGICS, 
 
 And chief the red, so succulent, require. 
 Unless well mingled with the lighter tribes, 
 Much spreading, tossing, rolling to and fro. 
 
 Others again, whate'er the grassy crop. 
 If one day's sun they gain, no longer trust 
 The fickle sky, but rear the verdant cock 
 Of size diminutive : these, with a little sheaf 
 Bound near the tops, and by the fingers combed. 
 Then circularly spread like bee-hive's thatch, 
 They shield from sudden rain and nightly dew. 
 So fenced, the little rows, if gently raised 
 From time to time, in seven days mere may join 
 To rear the swelling tramprick, and defy- 
 Both wind and rain. Beware, nor long delay 
 To pile the stack, on trees and boughs transverse, 
 From damp secured : — see, it surmounts the reach 
 Of arms full-stretched ; — then, from below, with forks 
 Up-poised, the fragrant heaps are spread, . 
 
JUNE. 107 
 
 And trampled with much jest and merriment, 
 And hurtless falls of blythsome lad and lass. 
 
 To destine all your grassy crop to hay 
 Is thriftless husbandry. In summer drouths 
 Preserve a portion green for stake and stall % 
 For in the pasture-field, the biting flies 
 Unceasingly, though lashed away, return, 
 And still return, tormenting, to the charge ; 
 Till, goaded past endurance, round the field 
 The maddened horse scours snorting, while the herd 
 Gallop in awkward guise, with tails erect,— 
 And, wildly bellowing, spite of hedge or ditch, 
 Rush to some neighbouring stream, and, plunging, lave 
 Their heaving sides. 
 
 Nor less the fleecy tribes 
 Suffer from noon-day heats. Upon thy hills, 
 Fair Scotland ! which the goodly forest crowned 
 In times of old, a tree, or sheltering bush, 
 
108 BRITISH GEORGICS* 
 
 Is now but rarely seen,— the mossy breach, 
 Or stone, or flood-scooped bank, the only shield 
 Where, screened but scantily, the panting sheep 
 C#n shun the sweltering beam : hence various ifte 
 Assail the harmless race. Nature points out 
 The remedy., — a shade ; and what so fit 
 For shade as trees : a narrow belt will serve. 
 If crescent-formed, to screen a numerous flock. 
 Select the spot with skill ; trees love not heights* 
 Stunted and slow, upon the stormy brow, 
 They'll scarce afford your children's flock a shade- 
 Observe where Nature plants ;- — the little haugh, 
 The murmuring brooklet's cradle, or the side 
 Of grassy slope, just where it joins the plain. 
 There plant the bonny birch, the spreading elm 3 
 The alder, quick of growth, and early green, 
 The broad-leaved plane ; and careful fence the whole. 
 
 Where, Ettrick ! now, thy forest wide outstretched* 
 Here towering high, in all its greenwood pride.* 
 
JUNE. 109 
 
 As swelled the mountain steeps, and there as low 
 
 Sinking into the dale, one sylvan scene, 
 
 Extending far as eye could reach, unbroke 
 
 Save by the river's winding course, or cliff 
 
 Projecting, or sweet sunny glade, where lay, 
 
 In ruminating peace, the fallow deer, 
 
 A grove of antlers, or by airy tower 
 
 That far o'erlocked to guard the green domain, 
 
 "Where, Ettrick, now thy pride ! save in the song 
 
 Of that bold Minstrel, whose loud-clanging strings, 
 
 Struck by the lightning of his ardent soul, 
 
 Awaken echoes that responses made 
 
 To noise of wars recorded in his lay ! 
 
 Where, Cheviot ! now, thy oaken canopy 
 
 Of boughs, beneath whose twilight vault, full-armed^ 
 
 The horseman rode, nor scathed his nodding crest ! 
 
 Where now thine, Torwood ! sacred to the cause 
 
 Of liberty ! where now the tree revered, 
 
 Beneath whose boughs the head of Wallace lay 
 
 That ill-starred eve ; ere Graham at Falkirk fell,? 
 
110 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Beneath whose boughs the royal tent was stretched 
 Of Bruce,, preparing for the glorious day 
 Of Bannockburn ! At Banxockburn — what heart 
 That boasts one drop of Scottish blood, but feels 
 A patriot glow burn thrilling through his frame, 
 New-nerve his languid arm, and make him smile 
 At, (what in sober mood stirs bodings dark), 
 At Gallic thunder threatening Albion's shores ! 
 Even yet the ploughman, as with sideward curve 
 He passes by the memorable stone 
 (Fit pedestal for Freedom's form sublime) 
 Wherein was fixed the Scottish standard, feels 
 A conscious pride his bosom swell, and grasps 
 With firmer hold the smooth-worn shafts. 
 
 To them who on a lovely morn of June % 
 At break of day, knelt on the dewy sward, 
 While full in view Inchaffray's abbot reared 
 
 * " Monday the 34th of June 1314. at break of day, tk« 
 English army moved on to the attack.'* — Hailes. 
 
JUNE, III 
 
 The sacred host * ; to them who, ere the shut 
 
 Of blood-besprinkled flowers, fell in the cause 
 
 Of Freedom and their Country ! to the men 
 
 Who that day's fight survived,, and saw once more 
 
 Their homes, their children ; — and, when silvery hairs 
 
 Their temples thin besprent, lived to recount, 
 
 On winter nights, the achievements of that day !— • 
 
 To them be ever raised the muses* voice 
 
 In grateful song triumphant ; — for by them 
 
 Was saved that independent state, so long maintained^ 
 
 From which, though in an evil hour resigned, 
 
 Are now derived that liberty, those laws, 
 
 Beneath whose equal rule the swain secure 
 
 * Maurice, abbot of Inchaffray, placing himself on an 
 eminence, celebrated mass in sight of the Scottish army. He 
 then passed along the front barefooted, bearing a crucifix in 
 his hand, and exhorted the Scots, in few and forcible words, 
 to combat for their rights and liberty. The Sco-s kneeled 
 clown. " They yield" cried Edward ; * see they implore 
 mercy." " They do" answered Ingleram de Umphraville, 
 M but not ours. On that fad they will be victorious,, or die" 
 
 
112 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Now wandering, at the silent gloamin tide^ 
 Amid his earing fields, anticipates, 
 With secret joy, and thankfulness of heart 
 Exuberantly fulL a plenteous year I 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 JULY. 
 
 Resounds the living surface of the ground: 
 
 Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hour, 
 
 To him who muses through the woods at noon, 
 
 Thomson 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 General features of this month — Destroy needs* — Cul- 
 tivation of bees — Great vigilance necessary with 
 bees at this season — Warm and sheltered situation 
 best preventive of distant flights — Directions re- 
 specting the apiary — Trees, shrubs, and f towers — 
 Honey dew — Prognostics of swarming — Directions 
 when they swarm — Removal of bees at close of 
 Summer to the moorlands — Diseased hive — Heme* 
 dies — Virtue of honey as a medicine for man — Na- 
 ture's remedies the most simple — Fever — Cold affu- 
 sion — Apostrophe to Dr Currie— Cold-bathing pre* 
 ventive of fever — Swimming. 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 JULY. 
 
 JN o more at dewy dawn, or setting sun 3 
 The blackbird's song floats mellow down the dale ; 
 Mute is the lark, or soars a shorter flight, 
 With carol briefly trilled, and soon descends. 
 In full luxuriance clothed, of various green, 
 The laughing fields and meadows, far and wide. 
 Gladden the eye: all-beauteous now 
 The face of Nature smiles serenely gay ; 
 And even the motley race of weeds enhance 
 Her rural charms : Yet let them not be spared ; 
 Still as they rise^ uneonquered, let the hoe 
 
116 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Or ploughshare crush them. In your fields permit 
 No wild-flower to expand its teeming bloom i 
 In wood and wild; there let them bud and blow 
 By haunted streamlet,, where the wandering bee, 
 Humming from cup to bell, collects their sweets. 
 
 Though rarely prized by husbandmen, whose bounds 
 Embrace a widely spread domain, the bee 
 Is not contemned by him, whose narrow means,, 
 Upon his ploughgate croft, require the help 
 Of every rural art ; nor by the man 
 Whose sole possession is his cottage home, 
 And garden plat ; nor yet by him who loves 
 Now to survey the planets as they roll, 
 Now to explore the wondrous insect's ways, 
 Adoring, while in both he traces power, 
 Almighty as benign » 
 
 This month require^ 
 From all who cultivate the frugal race, 
 
JULY. 117 
 
 A vigilance unceasing, lest unwarned 
 They lift too late their lightened hives, and find 
 The younger broods have ta en a distant flight. 
 If in an evening sky, serene and calm, 
 The martins higher than their wonted flight, 
 On arrowy pinions, scarcely quivering, soar, 
 And make the lofty turret or the spire, 
 That far below low'rs in the deepening shade.* 
 Seem of its height diminished, — then the air 
 Its utmost buoyancy has gained ; and hence 
 All things that in the liquid region ply, 
 Each bird and insect, float on easy wing : 
 On such an eve, w T ho marks the martin's flight, 
 Needs not to scan the argent column's rise 
 Prophetic, but, from Nature's signs, foresees 
 A ruddy morning tinge the dappled cope. 
 
 Oft when, at even-tide, a cluster hangs 
 No larger than laburnum's tasseled flower, 
 Long ere the morrow's sun has dried the dews, 
 
118 BRITISH GEORGICS* 
 
 The emigrating tribe is gone past hope ; 
 Nor, after anxious search o'er hill and dale,. 
 Does e'er the slumberous owner hear again 
 Their welcome hum.— 
 
 Or, on a Sabbath morn^ 
 Cloudy and calm, with not one sunny gleam 
 To lure them forth, I've seen a numerous swaira 
 (Whether attracted by the silence deep 
 And pause of rural toil, or sudden struck 
 By that instinctive impulse, which directs 
 More wisely than proud Reason's rules,) rush out 
 In myriads, and take wing ; while mingling sounds 
 Of distant church-bell, and the jangling pan, 
 Essayed in vain to stop the living cloud. 
 
 Such flights to hinder, nought conduces more 
 Than warm exposure, sheltered, sunny, low, 
 With pebbly rivulet, murmuring near at hand 
 O'er stones emerging from its chafing stream.: 
 
JULY. 119 
 
 Before, but not so near as to o'ershade 
 
 Your buzzing hamlet, let the linden tree 
 
 Sweet foliaged, and laburnum's golden flowers, 
 
 Present the tribe, when meditating flight, 
 
 A tempting seat, a blossoming abode. 
 
 Let all around a labyrinth extend 
 
 Of various shrubs, blooming at various times, 
 
 From the first breath of Spring, till Autumn tinge 
 
 The universal blush with sober brown ; — 
 
 And first the downy-blossomed palm *, the sloe-bush 
 
 dark, 
 Whose early flower anticipates the leaf, 
 The hawthorn, witness of fond lovers' vows, 
 The purple lilac, and the golden broom, 
 The rosy brier, and bramble stretching far 
 Its prickly arms. Defended by such walls, 
 In open plats be seen flowers of all hue, 
 And odorous herbs, — sweet rosmarine, 
 
 * A species of the willow* 
 
120 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 With wild thyme, breathing far its fresh perfume ; 
 The early daisy, and the crocus cup ; 
 The violet that loves a mossy couch ; 
 The pale primrose ; auricula full fraught 
 With vernal incense ; lily-beds profuse, 
 As if some shaded wreath of Winter's snow 
 Had lingered in the chilly lap of Spring ; 
 Fair daffodillies, hyacinthine rods 
 Enwreathed with azure bells, pinks, marigolds^ 
 And every blossom of the later year. 
 Who loves the labouring race, fails not to fill 
 Each nook around his dwelling-place with flowers, 
 Till every breeze that through his lattice plays 
 Bear fragrance, loading with delight the sense ; 
 Even round his windows carefully he trains 
 Lithe honey-suckles, vocal with the hum 
 Of the loved tribes, which, on a summer's day, 
 While screened he sits within the quivering shade- 
 Lull every care, and charm his waking dream. 
 
JULY. J21 
 
 But none of all the flowery race affords 
 Supplies so plentiful of honey lymph, 
 As, on a misty morning, calm, serene, 
 Are seen, though rarely, pendent from the spikes 
 Of drooping speargrass ; then all other herbs, 
 Each gaudy chaliced bloom, that in the sun 
 Twinkles with sterile dew, deserted hangs ; 
 And busily the humming labourers ply 
 Their easy task, returning loaded soon 
 In oft-repeated journies to the hive. 
 
 Than days preceded by these honied morns, 
 No time is more propitious for the flight 
 Of overflowing swarms. Soon as the sun 
 Has dried the dew, the light precursors Hy, 
 Like warping midges on a summer's eve, 
 In reeling dance before the crowded porch. 
 Others along the outside of the hive 
 Run hurriedly, then stopping, ply their wings* 
 The inner legions, pouring from the gate, 
 
122 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Increase the pendant cluster, till at once, 
 
 Streaming, it mounts in air, but soon alights 
 
 Upon some neighbouring spray, which blackened bends 
 
 Beneath the load. Haste, spread the sheet, and lay 
 
 Two rods of mountain-ash along, to keep 
 
 An opening all around the hive when set. 
 
 Next cut the loaded branch, nor hesitate, 
 
 Though, tempting, through the heaving bunch peep 
 
 forth 
 
 The purpling tint of plumbs full-formed, or ripe 
 
 The luscious cherry plead like beauty's lip : 
 
 Pomona's self her pruning hook would urge, 
 
 And save the living fruit : then spare not thou 
 
 The knife ; yet use it gently ; gently bear 
 
 The buzzing branch, and gently lay it down 
 
 Between the rowan * rods ; then o'er it place 
 
 Slowly the hive, and softly spread o'er all 
 
 Another sheet : quick to the transverse spokes 
 
 The myriad tribes will mount, and peaceful fill 
 i 
 
 * Mountain ash. 
 
JULY. 123 
 
 Their new abode. There let them rest, 
 
 Until the sultry hours begin to cool. 
 
 Upon a level board then place the hive, 
 
 And round the juncture close each crevice up 
 
 With well-wrought clay : the noxious reptile race 
 
 Will else intrude. Sometimes through narrowest chink 
 
 The crawling snail, insinuating, drags 
 
 His slimy length, and riots on the comb. 
 
 Even here resources in themselves, devised,. 
 
 Wisely devised, to meet the dire event, 
 
 Are by the ever-wondrous race displayed. 
 
 To death they first, with many a sting, devote 
 
 The unwelcome guest ; and then the monstrous mass, 
 
 Which else, corrupting, through the commonwealth 
 
 Would spread contagion, closely they entomb 
 
 In catacomb, as in his pristine shell. 
 
 When Summer's blow of flowers begins to fade. 
 Some to the moorlands bear their hives, to cull 
 The treasures of the heathbell ; simple flower ! 
 
124? BRITISH GE0RG1CS. 
 
 That still extends its purple tint as far 
 As eye can reach, round many an upland farm : 
 There still, of genuine breed, the colly * meets, 
 Barking shrill-toned, the stranger rarely seen ; 
 While near some rushy ricks of meadow hay 
 The startled horse stands gazing, then around 
 His tether-length of twisted hair full stretched, 
 He snorting scours : a toothless harrow serves 
 For garden gate, — where, duly ranged, the hives 
 Stand covered till the evening shades descend. 
 But when the sun-beams glisten on the dew, 
 Forth fly the stranger tribes, and far and near 
 Spread o'er the purple moor, cheering the task 
 Of him who busy digs his winter fuel ; 
 For 'mid these wilds no sound gives sign of life 
 Save hum of bee, or grasshoppers hoarse chirp ; 
 Or when the heath-fowl strikes her distant call ; 
 Or plovers, lighting on the half-buried tree, 
 Scream their dire dirge where once the linnet sung. 
 
 * Shepherd's, do£v 
 
JULY, 12.5 
 
 If e'er disease assail the humming race *, 
 (For they., no more than man,, escape disease), 
 Its first approaches watch : nor are the signs 
 Ambiguous of their state : their colour fades ; 
 A haggard leanness in their visage speaks ; 
 The bodies then, bereft of life, are borne 
 From out the silent porch, and frequent flies 
 The winged funeral : deep, meanwhile, within, 
 A murmur faint, and long drawn out, is heard, 
 Like south winds moaning through a grove of pines. 
 Here, let me urge to burn strong-scented herbs, 
 Neglecting not the helpless commonwealth 
 To aid with honied reeds, pushed gently in ; 
 And with the offered food fear not to mix 
 Oak-apple juice, dried roses, and wild thyme, 
 With centaury, exhaling powerful fumes. 
 In meadows grows a flower, by husbandmen 
 Called starwort ; easily it may be known, 
 For, springing from a single root, it spreads 
 
 * See Virgil's 4th Gecrgic. 
 
126 BRITISH GEGIiGICS. 
 
 A foliage affluent, golden-hued itself, 
 
 While from the leaves of darkest violet, 
 
 An under-tint of lighter purple shines : 
 
 Harsh to the taste, it wrings the shepherd's mouth : 
 
 Its root, in wine infused, affords at once 
 
 The hapless sufferers medicine and food. 
 
 To man himself, the honey cell is found, 
 In various ills, a virtue to possess 
 Surpassing far the medicated cup- 
 Simple the remedies which Nature gives ! 
 What cure so simple, and so powerful too, 
 As is the watery element, when fierce 
 Through every vein the sultry season rolls 
 A fev'rous tide, and fell Delirium nails, 
 Upon the throbbing head, his glowing crown. 
 O'er the parch' d skin the cold affusion flows 
 Again, and yet again, in copious stream ; 
 Till by degrees, more calmly, slowly, leaps 
 The restless pulse ; delicious coolness glides 
 
SULY. 127 
 
 Through all the frame ; and, as when thunder-clouds 
 Have rolled away, and forky fires have ceased 
 To vex the welkin, forth the sun again 
 Looks down complacently on wood and stream ; 
 Illumined by his smile, the drooping flowers, 
 The trees, rejoice; — so from the eye, obscured 
 Erewhile, the renovated soul beams forth 
 Intelligence on child and watching friend, 
 Raising their hands in silent thanks to God ! 
 
 And did the Sage, whose powerful genius shed 
 A flood of light, where only glimmering rays 
 Erewhile confounded, not illumed, the path 
 Of science, — did that man, the orphan's friend, 
 Die unrewarded ! No ; a meed was his, 
 Most grateful to his heart, a meed that soothed 
 His dying hour, — the sweet solacing thought, 
 That, though no more beside the couch of pain 
 His accents wafted healing on their wings, 
 His silent page, amid Disease's storm, 
 
12S BRITISH GEORGICS* 
 
 Was still the guiding chart to Safety's shore i 
 O what a balm to his benignant soul, 
 When looking forward to the parting hour, 
 To think that then, perhaps, some weeping groupe 
 Hailed, through his means, a parent snatched from 
 death ! 
 
 Yet not alone, to quench the burning pest, 
 Its wondrous power the gelid lymph exerts ; 
 Oft it extinguishes the kindling spark ; 
 And when a youthful band, buoyant with joy,. 
 Hie to the river side, they little ween, 
 That safety thus with pleasure is combined. 
 Come, then, ye jovial swains ! and in the shade, 
 Ere sultry noon, throw off your cumb'rous garb : 
 The pool, relucent to its pebbly bed, 
 With here and there a slowly-sailing trout, 
 Invites the throbbing, half-reluctant breast, 
 To plunge : — the dash re-echoes from the rocks, 
 And smooth, in sinuous course, the swimmer winds ; 
 
JULY. 129 
 
 xSow, with extended arms, rowing his way, 
 And now, floating with sunward face, outstretched, 
 Till, blinded by the dazzling beam, he turns, 
 Then to the bottom dives, emerging soon 
 With stone, as trophy, in his waving hand. 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 AUGUST. 
 
 When corn-rigs wave yellow, and blue heather hells 
 Bloom bonny on moorland and sweet rising fells. 
 
 Ramsay, 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 Characteristics of the month — Leveret — Partridge s 
 and her brood — Sportsman reconnoitring the moor 
 with dogs, anticipating the pleasures of the shooting 
 seasoji — Highland reapers journeying to the Low-* 
 lands-— Reapers assembled to be hired — Address to 
 Scotland as still the country of freedom — A word 
 of advice to Statesmen — Wheat harvest — Danger 
 from foods on riversides — Prognostics of heavy 
 rain — River overflowing its banks — Land improved 
 by the overflowing of rivers — Mud in creeks of 
 stream — Top-dressing with composts of alluvial 
 mud — Different magazines of manure supplied by 
 nature — LinUsteeping destructive to fish — Fisheries 
 
 -—Herring fishing Evening — —Village herd—* 
 
 Sportsman returning from moorlands — Transition 
 from that peaceful warfare to the situation of Spain^ 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 AUGUST. 
 
 Intense the viewless flood of heat descends 
 On hill, and dale, and wood, and tangled brake, 
 Where, to the chirping grasshopper, the broom, 
 With crackling pod, responds ; the fields embrowned 3 
 ftegin to rustle in the autumn breeze, 
 While from the waving shelter, bolder grown, 
 The lev'ret, at the misty hour of morn, 
 Forth venturing, limps to nip the dewy grass. 
 The partridge, too, and her light-footed brood, 
 As yet half-fledged, now haunt the corn-field skirt* 
 
134 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Or on new-weeded turnip fields are spied, 
 Bunning, in lengthened files, between the drills. 
 
 Now to the heath, ere yet the wished-for mora, 
 That licenses the game of death, arrive, 
 The sportsman hies to mark the moor-hen's haunt. 
 Boisterous with joy, his dogs bark, jump, and howl, 
 And running out before, in frolic chace, 
 Return as fast, marring his stumbling steps. 
 But when they reach the purple waste, afar, 
 With stooping heads, they roam, oft leaping up, 
 With backward look, to mark their master's mien. 
 He, with keen eye, prowling, surveys the ground, 
 And haply finds the game his dogs have missed. 
 Yes, with relentless eye he sees the dam, 
 Basking by some old cairn, amid her brood, 
 Or spreading o'er their harmless heads her wings j 
 He sees, unmoved by all a mother's cares, 
 And, as they rise, he counts his destined prey,. 
 
AUGUST. 135 
 
 Noting, with forward-darting look, the spot, 
 Where their yet feeble wings they panting rest. 
 
 Oft, at this season, faintly meets the ear 
 The song of harvest bands, that plod their way 
 From dark Lochaber, or the distant isles, 
 Journeying for weeks to gain a month of toil t 
 Sweet is the falling of the single voice, 
 And sweet the joining of the choral swell, 
 Without a pause ta'en up by old and young, 
 Alternating, in wildly-measured strain. 
 Thus they, 'mid clouds of nying dust, beguile, 
 With songs of ancient times,, their tedious way. 
 
 At city gate, or market-place, now groupes 
 Of motley aspect wait a master's call. 
 The grey-haired man, leaning upon his staff, 
 Is there ; the stripling, and the sun-burnt maid ; 
 The sallow artizan, who quits his tools, 
 To breathe awhile among the pleasant fields;, 
 
156 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 And earn at once health and his daily bread. 
 No scowling tyrant there goes round, and round, 
 Viewing the human merchandize with look 
 That fiends in vain would match ; no dread is there 
 Of separation ; parents, children, friends, 
 With one consent, take or reject the meed ; 
 Place, time, and master, all are in their choice, 
 
 Scotland, « with all thy faults, I love thee still {" 
 For freedom here still on the poor man smiles, 
 Sweetens his crust, and his hard pillow smoothes. 
 O ye, who guide the state, and mould the laws, 
 Beware lest, with your imposts overstrained, 
 Beware lest thus ye crush that noble spirit, 
 Which lives by equal laws, with them expires.— 
 Unequal burdens make the o'erburdened slaves ; 
 And, making slaves, they make men cowards too. 
 
 But hence this joyless theme, and let me seek 
 The fields once more ;— >hark ! at yon cottage door 
 
AUGUST. 137 
 
 The sickle harsh upon the grindstone grates, 
 Which, merrily, most uncouth music makes, 
 Drowning the song of him who whirls it round. 
 
 And now it oft befals, when farmers' hopes 
 Are all but realized, a mildew creeps 
 Along the wheaten ridge, blighting the ears. 
 Haste, then, the sickle urge, nor be deterred 
 Though, in some spots, a greenish tint pronounce 
 The ears unripe : the vegetating stage 
 Ere now is past ; and should no canker shoot 
 Its poison through the plant, the grain will proves 
 Though seeming immature, a healthy crop. 
 But, if allowed to stand, the subtle pest 
 Pervades stalk, husk, and grain, blasting the whole* 
 And even when your wheaten field betrays 
 No sickly hue, but gives a lusty rustle, 
 When waving in the wind, wait not in hope 
 That, standing, it will gain in bulk and weight : 
 Avail yourself betimes of sky serene, 
 
138 BRITISH GEORGICS'. 
 
 And with the sun the reapers lead afield. 
 
 How pleasant to the husbandman the sight 
 
 Of gleaming sickles, and of swelling sheaves ! 
 
 How joyfully he twists the rustling band, 
 
 And, pressing with his knee, binds up the sheaf ! 
 
 While merrily the jest and taunt go round, 
 
 Running, like scattered fire, along the line. 
 
 And still the master's joke should, mingling, cheejr 
 
 The stooping row, and make their labour light. 
 
 Beware, ye swains ! whose level fields extend 
 Along; a river-side, and build vour sheaves 
 Beyond the utmost verge of highest floods. 
 Or, if you trust them on the perilous spot, 
 Watch carefully the signs foreboding change. 
 
 No sign of gathering storm, both wind and rai?v 
 Is surer than the sea-fowl's inland flight. 
 For though the conflict of the winds and waves 
 Be distant far, a sympathetic heave 
 
AUGUST. 139 
 
 Is felt along the tranquil seeming bays, 
 Warning the hovering flocks of surges loud 
 That soon will lash the shore, and render vain 
 The piercing sight, which, in a peaceful sea, 
 Discerns, high on the wing, the finny prey : 
 But while their briny harvest thus is marred. 
 On shore the coming deluge draws the race 
 Of reptiles from their haunts, in mead and grove 
 Concealed, — the puffing frog, the horned snail. 
 And all the species of the slimy tribes, 
 Repast profusely spread. 
 
 He who contemns 
 These auguries, nor timely moves his. shocks 
 To safer ground, will rue when, with the dawn 
 Awaking, loud the river's roar he hears : 
 To doubt, in vain he strives ; his eye confirms 
 The tidings of his ear, and rapid down 
 The foamy current he beholds his sheaves 
 
HO BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Sweeping along, while, 'mid the havoc, bleats 
 The floating lamb, with meek unconscious face* 
 
 Some rivers, by the mountain-torrents fed, 
 Rush down, with swell so sudden and so high, 
 That all her fleetness cannot save the hare, 
 Unless (as erst befel in Clyde's fair dale) 
 She gain some passing rick : there close she squats, 
 Now in the middle current shot along 
 In swift career, now near the eddying side 
 Whirling amazed, while from the dizzy shore 
 Some shepherd's dog discerns the floating prize, 
 And, barking, scours along, then stops, but fears 
 To venture in ; onward meanwhile she sails, 
 Till, through the broadened vale, the stream expand 
 In gentler course, and gliding past the bank, 
 Restore her, fearful, to the fields again. 
 
 Floods, ruinous to husbandmen, enrich 
 The land itself: See how the pendent sprays 
 
AUGUST. HI 
 
 That in the flood were dipt, are soiled, and judge 
 How richly fraught with vegetable food 
 The stream subsides upon the deluged plain, 
 
 This rich deposit oft unheeded lies 
 In little creeks, and windings of the stream,: 
 Accumulated deep ; whence, if removed 
 To swell the compost pile, another store, 
 Soon as another flood recedes, your care rewards, 
 But if your bank, from Nature, has received 
 No flexure, no recess, to intercept 
 The watery wealth, boldly the shore indent 
 With little bays, narrow and slanting up, 
 That past each entrance, smooth the current's force 
 May harmlessly, with easy flow, glide by. 
 A verdure deep, with many a daisy gemmed, 
 In early spring, delights the eye of him 
 Whose compost heaps, rich with alluvial mud^ 
 O'erspread his pasture fields ; for thus the roots 
 At once are shielded from the wintry frosts, 
 
142 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 And fed with food, like that whi :h, after showers 
 Of softest fall, or on a dewy morn, 
 Cloudy and still, is seen in earthy coils 
 Vermicular, appearing through the sward. 
 Thus human art still most successful proves, 
 When following nature with unconscious step. 
 
 Full many are the stores of rich manure 
 That lie neglected. Every sluggish ditch 
 And stagnant puddle, during summer heats^ 
 Is bottomed with a fertilizing layer. 
 One sign unerring of a magazine, 
 On which the power putrescent has produced 
 Its full effect, is that small insect scum, 
 Minute and sable as the explosive grain, 
 Withal so light, that, by the softest breath 
 Of Autumn breeze, 'tis driven to and fro. 
 Would husbandmen look round with searching eye,- 
 And use those meliorating means which lie 
 Oft unsuspected, or, if known, despised, 
 
AUGUST. 143 
 
 More rarely would they time and gold expend 
 For the vile sweepings of the noisome town. 
 
 The flaxen crop, which now 'tis time to pull, 
 Steeped in some neighbouring pond, converts 
 The simple water into strong manure. 
 Yet many, heedless, bear to far-off moors 
 The sheaves diminutive, and sink them deep 
 In sable pits, from whence was scooped the peat i 
 Or wantonly, in running brooks, immerge 
 This poison fatal to the scaly tribes. 
 Alas ! below the tainted pool behold 
 The frequent upturned-side gleam in the sun. 
 
 Britannia, to thy richest treasures blind, 
 Treasures that teem in river, firth, and sea,— 
 Why sleep thy laws, and why that harvest blight 
 "Which, without seed or toil, is gained ? Extend 
 Protection to thy hardy mountaineers, 
 
144< BRITISH GEOHGICS. 
 
 And,, since extruded from their native wilds, 
 Permit them free possession of the waves. 
 
 How sweet, o'er Scotia's hill-encircled seas, 
 The evening sun-beam, slanting down the glens, 
 Illumes the scene where now the busy oars 
 Ply to the chaunted strain, — soft, soothing, wild,— 
 Of days of other years, — perhaps a song, 
 Or cadence of some vocal ruin, spared 
 By ruthless Time, relenting to destroy 
 These lays with which the voice of Cona lulled 
 The weary wave that slumbered on the shore ! 
 But now, with bustling noise, from every stern 
 Run out the folded nets, and, in the brine 
 Plunging, leave far behind a foamy track. 
 
 In lowland dales, at this bland hour of eve, 
 The village herd slow from the common wends 
 Each to her well-known stall, while loud the horn 
 Blows many a needless bla^t; and homeward shots 
 
Of sated sportsmen, at the moorland skirts, 
 Returning weary, break the placid hush. 
 O peaceful war ! alas, in other lands, 
 The sylvan war is silent. Loud the roar 
 Of thundering ordnance echoes 'mid the rocks 
 Of proud Iberia, throned amid the blaze 
 Of pealing tubes ; her hands distained- 
 With other vintage than the wine-press yields ; 
 Her crown with thistles, roses, shamrocks, wreathed ; 
 And at her feet the Gallic lilies torn, 
 Deep-blushing with the blood of murdered babes. 
 Around her see the shattered columns form, 
 While Freedom's standard, waving in her grasp, 
 Soars like an eag-Ie o'er the storm-fraught clouds. 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 Thy hounty shines in Autumn unconfned 9 
 And spreads a common feast for all thai lives... 
 
 Thomson. 
 
ARGUMENT.. 
 
 Reaping of oats — Partridge-shooting — Equinoctial 
 winds — Rains more injurious to harvest — Hint at 
 a mode of drying corn in the field — 'Reaping by 
 moonlight — Highland reapers, on Sabbath, reading 
 Gaelic Bible — Apostrophe on the translation of the 
 Bible into the Gaelic language — Leading of corn 
 — -Stack-building — Tranquillity and silence of the 
 fields after harvest — Kirn, or harvest-home — High* 
 land reapers returning, hearing their language 
 spoken in their native glen — Pleasure of hearing 
 the Scottish language first spoken on re-crossing the 
 Border— Regret on prospect of leaving Scotland, 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 C/LEAR is the sky, and temperate the air, 
 That, scarcely stirring, wafts, with gentlest breathy 
 The gossamer light glittering in the sun. 
 And now, the wheat and barley harvest o'er, 
 Blythsome the reapers to the lighter work 
 Of oaten-field repair, and gaily stoop, 
 Grasping the lusty handfuls, while they draw- 
 Close to the ground, the sickle, saving thus 
 The useful straw for fodder or for lair. 
 Severe, yet cheerful, both to old and young, 
 This stooping labour ; frequently they paus% 
 
150 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 For reason slight, or none ; sometimes to gaze 
 Upon the passing coach, that, 'neath a load 
 Enormous, seems to stagger as it rolls, 
 Amid a cloud of dust ; sometimes to taunt 
 The traveller on foot who plods his way, 
 And, failing in the attempted repartee, 
 Quickens his pace to shun the vollied shower 
 Of rustic wit ; or by the fowler's gun 
 Startled, while o'er the neighbouring hedge 
 The wounded partridge flies, and at their feet 
 Falls, vainly fluttering, followed fast by dog 
 And master. Ruthless man ! how canst thou see, 
 As, lifting that poor bird, it in thy face 
 Looks up — how canst thou see that piteous look, 
 That blood-drop trickling down its panting breast^ 
 Nor feel compunction for the barbarous deed ! 
 
 Now come the equinoctial blasts, that lay 
 Level the sheaves. This danger to avoid, 
 Look at the forest's topmost twigs, or larch,. 
 
SEPTEMBER. 151 
 
 That ever shuns the most prevailing wind, 
 And let your shocks, placed lengthwise to the storm^ 
 Present their sloping ends ; else, if they stand 
 Athwart the sweeping tempest's line, overthrown, 
 They frequent lie drenched in a furrow pool. 
 
 But more destructive to yon new-piled sheaves. 
 Are rains, which, unaccompanied with wind, 
 Come drizzling down in ceaseless, soaking fall. 
 Singly the sheaves must then be placed upright t- 
 Yet even this remedy oft fruitless proves ; 
 For nightly gusts at intervals will blow, 
 And, with the morning sun, you find your work 
 Laid prostrate. 
 
 Strange that implements abound. 
 In every process of the farmer's art, . 
 Save this: and yet, without much pains or cost, 
 Means sure there are, by which, in shorter space 
 Than now required, if but the rain remit,. 
 
152 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 The dripping crop may thoroughly be dried, 
 
 A row of forked stakes draw cross the field, 
 
 With spars from cleft to cleft laid all along,— - 
 
 On these your sheaves, bound near the tops, suspend ; 
 
 Thus, while descends the rain, fast trickling off 
 
 Each dangling sheaf, the capillary bunch, 
 
 Free of the plashy ground, no moisture draws. 
 
 In rainy harvests, when the day is dimmed 
 With one continued shower, sometimes the night 
 Clears up, and, through the parting clouds, the moon 
 Shoots forth, o'er tower and tree, a silvery beam. 
 Such interval the prudent husbandman 
 Will eager seize, and by the pallid light, 
 Though oft obscured by slowly passing clouds, 
 Will urge the reaping task, nor will desist, 
 Though on the eve before the hallowed mom, 
 The brightening change begin ; at such a time, 
 No law of God forbids the needful toil 
 To be protracted, till the fading orb,, 
 
SEPTEMBER. 153 
 
 And morning's bird, proclaim the day-spring nigh* 
 
 Then let your labour cease, and let not man 
 
 Determine rashly when to disregard 
 
 That heavenly precept, merciful, benign, 
 
 Keep holy to the Lord the seventh day. 
 
 On this blest day the weary reaper rests 
 
 In thankfulness of heart ; see far retired, 
 
 Behind a shadowing shock, yon little groupe 
 
 Of strangers on the ground, and in their hands., 
 
 In tongue unknown in lowland plain, the Word 
 
 Of Life * ! O grand emprize ! O generous boon ! 
 
 That little book to Scotia's farthest isles, 
 
 In each low cottage, comfort speaks, and peace : 
 
 Even to the hapless exile, as he lifts 
 
 His eldest born, and, weeping, bids him take 
 
 A last look of the fast-receding shore, 
 
 It consolation speaks, pointing his view 
 
 To that blest country whence they'll ne'er depart ! 
 
 * Tke translation of the Bible into the Gaelic language, 
 
154? BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Soon as, by drying power of sun and wind, 
 Your crop is ready for the stack or barn, 
 One hour delay not ; every other work 
 Defer, and, cheery, o'er the ridges drive 
 The high-piled wains ; then back, with quickened pace, 
 Return, and lighter load of smiling elves, 
 Whose purple cheeks the bramble vintage dyes : 
 Haste, quick reload, and back, and back again, 
 The journey short repeat, till all your fields 
 Are to the stubble cleared, and gradual rise 
 The cheerful pyramids. 
 
 On transverse boughs 
 Construct them with due care, for thus you guard 
 'Gainst eartlry damps, and thus the pilfering mouse 
 More rarely will intrude, than when your sheaves 
 Are laid in contact with the burrowed soil, 
 Against this evil let the screeching owl, 
 A sacred bird be held ; protect her nest, 
 Whether in neighbouring crag, within the reach 
 
SEPTEMBER. 155 
 
 Of venturous boy, it hang, or in the rent 
 Of some old echoing tower, where her sad plaint 
 The live-long night she moans, save when she skims,, 
 Prowling, along the ground, or, through your barn, 
 Her nightly rounds performs ; unwelcome guest ! 
 Whose meteor-eyes shoot horror through the dark, 
 And numb the tiny revellers with dread. 
 
 Of forms the circular is most approved, 
 As offering, in proportion to its bulk, 
 The smallest surface to the storm's assault. 
 To turn the driving rain, the outer sheaves, 
 With bottoms lower than the rustling tops, 
 Should sloping lie. When to the crowning sheaf 
 Arrived, distrust the sky; the thatch lay on, 
 And bind with strawy coils. O pleasant sight ! 
 These lozenzed ropes that, at the tapering top, 
 End in a wisp-wound pinnacle, a gladsome perch, 
 On which already sits poor Robin, proud, 
 And sweetly sings a «song, to Harvest Home ! 
 
156 BRITISH GEORGICS* 
 
 The fields are swept, a tranquil silence reigns, 
 And pause of rural labour, far and near. 
 Deep is the morning's hush ; from grange to grange 
 Responsive cock-crows, in the distance heard 
 Distinct as if at hand, soothe the pleased ear : 
 And oft, at intervals, the flail, remote, 
 Sends faintly through the air its deafened sound, 
 
 Bright now the shortening day, and blythe its close, 
 When to the kirn *, the neighbours, old and young, 
 Come dropping in to share the well-earned feast. 
 The smith aside his ponderous sledge has thrown, 
 Raked up his fire, and cooled the hissing brand : 
 His sluice the miller shuts ; and from the barn 
 The threshers hie, to don their Sunday coats. 
 Simply adorned, with ribbons, blue and pink, 
 Bound round their braided hair, the lasses trip 
 To grace the feast, which now is smoaking ranged 
 On tables of all shape, and size, and height, 
 
 * Harvcsuhome. 
 
SEPTEMBER. 157 
 
 Joined awkwardly, yet to the crowded guests 
 
 A seemly joyous show, all loaded well : 
 
 But chief, at the board-head, the haggis round 
 
 Attracts all eyes, and even the goodman's grace 
 
 Prunes of its wonted length. With eager knife, 
 
 The quivering globe he then prepares to broach ; 
 
 While for her gown some ancient matron quakes^ 
 
 Her gown of silken woof, all figured thick 
 
 With roses white, far larger than the life, 
 
 On azure ground,- — her grannam's wedding garb, 
 
 Old as that year w T hen SherifFmuir was fought. 
 
 Old tales are told, and well-known jests abound, 
 
 Which laughter meets half way as ancient friends, 
 
 Nor, like the worldling, spurns because thread-bare* 
 
 W T hen ended the repast, and board and bench 
 Vanish like thought, by many hands removed, 
 Up strikes the fiddle; quick upon the floor 
 The youths lead out the half-reluctant maids, 
 Bashful at first, and darning through the reels 
 
158 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 With timid steps, till, by the music cheered, 
 With free and airy step, they bound along, 
 Then deftly wheel, and to their partners face, 
 Turning this side, now that, with varying step. 
 Sometimes two ancient couples o'er the floor, 
 Skim through a reel, and think of youthful years. 
 
 Meanwhile the frothing bickers *, soon as filled, 
 Are drained, and to the gauntrees t oft return, 
 Where gossips sit, unmindful of the dance. 
 Salubrious beverage ! Were thy sterling worth 
 But duly prized, no more the alembic vast 
 Would, like some dire volcano, vomit forth 
 Its floods of liquid fire, and far and wide 
 Lay waste the land ; no more the fruitful boon 
 Of twice ten shrievedoms, into poison turned, 
 Would taint the very life-blood of the poor, 
 Shrivelling their heart-strings like a burning scroll. 
 
 * Beakers. 
 
 f Wooden frames on which beer casks are set,— Johnsok, 
 
SEPTEMBER. 159 
 
 As merrily, in many a lowland vale, 
 These annual revels fill, with simple glee, 
 The husbandman, and cottar, man and child j— 
 Far on their homeward way, the Highland bands 
 Approach the mountain range, the bound sublime 
 Of Scotia's beauteous plains, while gleams of joy, 
 Not tearless, tint each face : As when the clouds, 
 That lowr along those steeps, slowly ascend, 
 And whiten, as they upward flit, in flakes 
 Still thin and thinner spreading, till, at last, 
 Each lofty summit gleams, each torrent-fall 
 Reflects the radiance of the setting sun. 
 And now, upon the way-worn traveller's ear, 
 The much-loved language, in his native glen, 
 Seems music sweet : — what joy ! scarce more he feels 
 When, in the lowly thatch his sickle hung, 
 He clasps his children to his throbbing heart. 
 
 How pleasant came thy rushing, silver Tweed ! 
 Upon my ear, when, after roaming long 
 
160 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 In southern plains, I've reached thy lovely bank f 
 How bright, renowned Sark ! thy little stream, 
 Like ray of columned light chacing a shower, 
 Would cross my homeward path ; how sweet the sound, 
 When I, to hear the Doric tongue's reply, 
 Would ask thy well-known name ! 
 
 And must I leave^ 
 Dear land, thy bonny braes, thy dales, 
 Each haunted by its wizard stream, o'erhung 
 With all the varied charms of bush and tree ; . 
 Thy towering hills, the lineaments sublime, 
 Unchanged, of Nature's face, which wont to fill 
 The eye of Wallace, as he, musing, planned 
 The grand emprize of setting Scotland free ! 
 And must I leave the friends of youthful years^ 
 And mould my heart anew, to take the stamp 
 Of foreign friendships, in a foreign land, 
 And learn to love the music of strange tongues !■— > 
 Yes^ I may love the music of strange tongues, 
 
SEPTEMBER. 161 
 
 And mould my heart anew, to take the stamp 
 
 Of foreign friendships, in a foreign land : — 
 
 But, to my parched mouth's roof cleave this tongue^ 
 
 My fancy fade into the yellow leaf, 
 
 And this oft-pausing heart forget to throb, 
 
 If, Scotland ! thee and thine I e'er forget* 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 OCTOBER. 
 
 "Twas when the stachs get on their winter hap. 
 And thack and rape secure the toil-won crap ; 
 Potatoe bings are snugged upfrae shaith 
 Of coming Winter s biting frosty breath. 
 
 Burns, 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 Appearance of this month — Prognostic of early frost 
 — Turning up potatoes with the plough — Best mode 
 of storing them — Wheat sowing — Steeping of seed 
 — Tendency to disease in man and animals at this 
 season — Defects in horses now most easily seen—~ 
 Hints for choosing a work-horse — Hints for break- 
 ing young horses — Season for planting — Error of 
 planting firs by way of nurses to other species of 
 trees — Woods of pine — Their deformity — Misap- 
 plication of ground to fir plantations, where deci- 
 duous trees would thrive — The different soils and 
 situations most suitable to the different species of 
 trees — Various tints of different trees during this 
 month— Nutting— Haltoveen* 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 OCTOBER, 
 
 JT air shines the sun, but with a meekened smile 
 
 Regretful, on the variegated woods 
 
 And glittering streams, where floats the hazel spray 3 
 
 The yellow leaf, or rowan's ruby bunch. 
 
 Hushed are the groves ; each woodland pipe is mute, 
 
 Save when the redbreast mourns the falling leaf. 
 
 How plaintively, in interrupted trills, 
 
 He sings the dirge of the departing year ! 
 
 Of various plume and chirp, the flocking birds 
 
 Alight on hedge or bush, where, late concealed,, 
 
 Their ne*ts now hang apparent to the view* 
 
166 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 If, 'mid the tassels of the leafless ash, 
 A fieldfare flock alight, for early frosts 
 Prepare, and timely save the precious root, 
 Before the penetrating power has reached 
 The unseen stores. If, planted in fair rows, 
 They marshalled grew, the plough will best perform- 
 The reaping task : amid the tumbling soil,. 
 The vegetable mine, exposed to. view, 
 The gatherers' basket fills. 
 
 Some, to secure 
 From possibility of frost's access, 
 Dig pits, and there throw in the gathered crop ;~ 
 A mode unwise ; for thus, if water gain 
 Admittance to the store, there it collects, 
 And to itself assimilates the whole. 
 Exclusion of the atmosphere is gained, 
 As well by heaping earth above the roots, 
 As by interring them. Chuse, then, a spot 
 The driest of the field,, and. on the surface pite 
 
OCTOBER. 167 
 
 A heap pyramidal, bedded on straw. 
 
 Let not the bulk be great, lest pressure bruise 
 
 The under-layers ; and do not grudge the toil 
 
 Of subdivision into many heaps. 
 
 In thickness let the covering cone be more 
 
 Than what the strict necessity requires, 
 
 And loosely laid, save at the surface, smooth 
 
 And flattened down.. 
 
 How ceaseless is the round: 
 Of rural labour ! Soon as on the field 
 The withered haulms and suckers crackling blaze, 
 And, ; with their far-extending volumes, load 
 The wings of Autumn's latest lingering breeze, 
 The wheaten seed-time all your care demands : 
 Delay not, then, but watchful seize the tide % 
 That, ere begins the frost's severer sway, 
 Hostile to vegetation's earliest stage, 
 
 * Time— new seldom used in that sense, except in composl* 
 tion with other words, as XMpntidgm 
 
168 BRITISH GEOKGICS. 
 
 The fibres may have time, shooting around, 
 To penetrate, and fasten in the soil. 
 
 In briny pickle strong, some drench the grain. 
 And from the surface scum the worthless part. 
 When thus prepared, with lusty even growth 
 The embryons sprout ; and, while all nature droops,, 
 The bladed ridges, robed in tender green, 
 Revive the heart with presages of Spring. 
 
 While still the ambiguous season, unconfirmed* 
 Retains some summer signs, yet more displays 
 Of Winter's near approach, man, bird, and beast, 
 Begin to droop, as if the waning year 
 Some strange malignant influence had dispensed. 
 Chief in the horse, each weakness, hurt, or flaw, 
 Which genial summer food, and genial warmth, 
 Will oft conceal, appears, nor can elude 
 Even eyes unskilled. Now is the buyer's time 
 To seek the crowded fair. A slow survey 
 
OCTOBER. 169 
 
 First take of all the rows : examine well, 
 
 In his quiescent state, the horse that hits 
 
 Your roaming eye : mark if one foot he points, 
 
 Unfailing sign of lameness : mark his eyes, 
 
 If slumberous or alert : till well surveyed, 
 
 Forbear your hands, for, handling, you arouse 
 
 The sluggish into spirit not their own. 
 
 Of signs of strength, the least deceitful are, 
 
 A neck of muscle, which, when sideward turned, 
 
 Seems like a cable coil of some great ship, 
 
 And under it a breast jutting and broad, 
 
 Knurled like the trunk of ancient oak or elm ; 
 
 Short pastern joints ; full hoofs, and deep withal 
 
 Of sable hue ; a waist compact and round ; 
 
 Round haunch ; high shoulder ; head not large, 
 
 With eyes full-orbed. For temper watch his head, 
 
 And, if he greet your gently-stroking hand 
 
 With ears laid backward, and projecting snout, 
 
 Proceed elsewhere, and make another choice. 
 
170 BRITISH GEOKGICS. 
 
 If on a horse untrained to load or draught 
 Your choice should fall, — by lenient, soothing meansy 
 Tame, not subdue, his spirit to the yoke. 
 At first, a. lightly-loaded sack, to mill 
 Or market, let him bear, and often stroke 
 His trembling neck, and cheer him with your voice. 
 Let not the lash, or stern command, alarm 
 His startled ear ; but gently lead him on.— 
 O think how short the time, since, joyous free, 
 He roamed the mead, or, by his mother's side, 
 Attended plough or harrow, scampering gay ; 
 And think how soon his years of youth and strength 
 Will fly, and leave him, to that wretched doom 
 Which ever terminates the horse's life, — 
 Toil more and more severe, as age, decay, 
 Disease, unnerve his limbs, till, sinking faint 
 Upon the road, the brutal stroke resounds. 
 
 When,, on the rustling pathway of the grove, 
 Falling from branch to branch, the frequent leaf 
 
OCTOBER. 171 
 
 Gently alights, and whispers as it falls, 
 
 How short, how fleeting, is the life of man ! 
 
 Then is the planting season ; then the sap 
 
 Has ceased to circulate ; and while the power 
 
 Of vegetation slumbering lies, the change 
 
 From the warm fostering spot, where first the plant 
 
 Put forth its leaf, remains unfelt, till Spring, 
 
 By slow degrees, awake the vital spark, 
 
 And, with a whispering zephyr, gently breathe 
 
 O'er swelling bud and slowly-spreading leaf,. 
 
 A sweet oblivion of its infant couch > 
 
 Some mingle, with the fair leaf-bearing trees,. 
 The bristled piny tribes ; and, by a word 
 Misled, believe that thus they nurse the plants.. 
 But mark the progress : — -rapid is the growth. 
 Of all the race of pines ; soon they o'ertop, 
 O'erspread, and, like some nurses, overlay,. 
 And choak their tender charge ; or, if betimes 
 They're thinned p ,still with their taller growth they shade 
 
172 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 From light and heat, the lower-spreading kinds ; 
 And thus, surrounded by a sable ring 
 Of firs, as in a pit, lurks the poor oak^ 
 Beholding but the zenith of the sky. 
 What tree ere throve doomed to perpetual shade f 
 Is warmth superfluous to the youngling plant ? 
 Does not the genial sunbeam of the Spring 
 Gladden, with kindly influence, bud and spray ?— 
 To break the blast, not to exclude the air, 
 And light, and heat, be that your aim, an end 
 That's best attained by other obvious means 
 Than mingling pines as nurses to your groves. 
 Draw them in rows along the bounding line ; 
 And, in proportion to the planted space, 
 And different degrees of slope and height. 
 Let other piny rows athwart be drawn. 
 
 Not satisfied with using firs to screen 
 The leafy tribes, improvers some there are # 
 Enamoured of deformity and gloom, 
 
OCTOBER. 173 
 
 Who strangely deem they beautify the land 
 
 By planting woods of pine, or sable belts, 
 
 Like funeral processions, long drawn out. 
 
 But not the eye alone these woeful groves 
 
 Offend; no cheerful rustle, like the trees 
 
 With smiling foliage clothed, give they ; 
 
 A rushing sound moans through their waving boughs^ 
 
 Grateful to him alone whose sorrow is past hope. 
 
 Nor is it only on the barren moor, 
 Or mountain bleak, these northern hordes intrude ; 
 No, they usurp the warm and sheltered glen, 
 Supplant the levelled bank of greenwood trees, 
 And, with their poisonous drop, the primrose waix 5 
 The purple violet, the columbine, 
 And all the lowly children of the vale, 
 Both flower and flowering underwood, destroy. 
 
 Idolaters of piny groves maintain, 
 That no where else, when fair deciduous trees 
 
17* BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Their foliage lose, does verdure cheer the eye. 
 Verdure ! O word abused ! does that dark range, 
 Dingy and sullen, sable as the cloud 
 That low'rs on Winter's brow, deserve the name 
 Of verdure ! — lovely hue ! that makes yon field 
 Of wheaten braird smile cheerful 'mid the gloom 
 Of Autumn's close, and threats of muttering storms* 
 To eyes unprejudiced by Fashion's law, 
 More pleasing far the leafless forest scene, 
 Whether beneath the storm it undulate 
 A deep-empurpled sea, or tranquil rest 
 In moveless beauty, while the frosty power 
 Adorns each spray and twig with fleecy plumes* 
 
 Let lovers of the forest first consult 
 The nature of the ground. A moist abode 
 Best suits the willow tribes, yet will they thrive 
 In any soil. The alder, too, prefers 
 A station dank ; chiefly the river side 
 It loves to haunt, down to the very brink. 
 
OCTOBER. 175 
 
 Hooted oft-times beneath the gliding stream, 
 
 While round each tree a kindred bush upsprings. 
 
 In moist, not swampy soils, the elm delights ; 
 
 No tree bears transplantation like the elm ; 
 
 With sure success the elm may be removed, 
 
 Even when the twentieth spring draws forth the buds, 
 
 No scanty foliage, no decaying twigs, 
 
 Betoken signs of change : clinging to life, 
 
 An elm-tree stake puts forth young shoots, and spreads 
 
 Its verdant foliage in the gap it fills. 
 
 The dry hill-side, though sterile be the mould, 
 
 Delights the beechen tree. In every soil, 
 
 Or warm or cold, or moist or dry, the birch 
 
 Will rear its smooth and glossy stem, and spread 
 
 Its odoriferous foliage. Loamy moulds 
 
 Best suit the ash ; yet will it thrive in all, 
 
 Save in stiff clays, or in the oozy swamp. 
 
 The monarch of the woods delights in plains 
 
 And valley sides, nor shuns the mountain's brow ; 
 
 Regardless of the storm, the oak's vast limbs 
 
176 BRITISH GEORGICS, 
 
 Stretch equal all around, and scorn the blast : 
 So, when transformed into the floating towers- 
 That bear Britannia's thunders o'er the deep, 
 Heaved on the mountain billows, they defy 
 The elemental war, the battle's strife, 
 And proudly quell the storm of flood and fire. 
 But fitter far such themes for him who sung 
 Ye Mariners of England J in a strain 
 More grand, inspired^ than e'er from Grecian lyre 
 Or Roman flowed,— that bard of soul sublime. 
 Who, in prophetic vision, dared to light 
 The torch of Hope at Nature's funeral pile ! 
 
 Meeter for me, amid the rustling leaves, 
 To trace the woodland path, and mark the tints 
 So varied, yet harmonious, that adorn 
 The trees retentive of their summer robes :^- 
 The beech of orange hue ; the oak embrowned ; 
 The yellow elm ; the sycamore so red ; 
 The alder's verdure deep, of all the trees 
 
OCTOBER. 177 
 
 The latest to disrobe ; the hazle, hung 
 .With russet clusters := — hark ! that crashing branch, 
 As to the maid he loves, the clambering youth 
 Down weighs the husky store: while others catchy 
 With hooked rods, the highest slender spra}^, 
 And bend them to some upward stretching hand, 
 Or shake the ripened shower, and, dexterous, twitch] 
 From the fair bosom's shield, the blushing prize. 
 One climbs the precipice's crag, and stretches, 
 Dizzying the gazer's eye, in dread attempt, 
 His arm, to reach some richly-clustered branch ; 
 And though he's foiled, perhaps a trembling voice* 
 And upturned eye, with eager clasping hands, 
 Make disappointment sweet, and first confess 
 A mutual flame which oft the tongue denied. 
 
 And now they bear the woodland harvest home^ 
 And store it up for blythesome Hallowe'en, 
 A night of mirth and glee to old and young. 
 With the first star that twinkles in the east, 
 
178 BRITISH GE0RG1CS, 
 
 From house to house, joyous, the schoolboys bear 
 Their new-pulled stocks, while, 'mid the curled blades, 
 A few dim candles in derision shine 
 Of Romish rites, now happily forgot. 
 As each goes out, the bearer homeward hies, 
 And 'twixt the lintel and the thatch, lays up 
 The well singed emblem of his future mate. 
 Then round the fire, full many a cottage ring 
 Cheerful convenes, to burn the boding nuts. 
 Some lovingly, in mutual flames, consume, 
 Till, wasting into embers grey, (sign of long life 
 Together spent), they cause sometimes the event 
 Believed to be foretold ; some, when thrown in, 
 Exploding, bound away, as if they spurned 
 Their proffered partner. Marion to the wood, 
 Thus slighted, hied, from rowan-tree two-stemmed, 
 A sprig to pull ; with quaking heart she passed 
 The gloomy firs, the lightning-shivered oak, 
 The ruined mill, all silent 'neath the moon. 
 Oft did she pause, and once she would have turned. 
 
OCTOBER. 171 
 
 As cross her path the startled howlet flew, 
 Sailing along, but, from an aged thorn, 
 The stock-dove faintly coo'd beside his mate ;— 
 Forward she sped, and with the dear-won prize^, 
 Breathless returned, nor waited long, till, lo, 
 A sister-spray adorned her true-love's breast. 
 And now, by turns, the laughing circle strives* 
 Plunging, to catch the floating fruit, that still 
 Eludes the attempt ; nor is the triple spell 
 Of dishes, ranged to cheat the groping hand, 
 Forgot, nor aught of all the various sports 
 Which hoar tradition hands from age to age. 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 NOVEMBER. 
 
 While tumbling, brown, the burn comes down? 
 
 And roars frae bank to brae ; 
 And bird and beast hi covert rest, 
 
 And pass the heartless day, 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 Early arrival of the woodcock a prognostic of an ear- 
 ly and severe winter — Grass-felds to be saved from 
 poaching at this season — Ploughing of old leas — 
 Care of the team — Turnip-fields staked off for 
 sheep — An adjoining grass-feld necessary for sheep 
 during the night — A serene night— A hazy night- 
 Various appearances of Will-a-Wisp — Night-scene 
 at sea in tropical regions— -Cottage-fireside — Serene 
 morning — Hoar-frost — Withered aspect of sward, 
 except at fountain brinks and rills — Hence the idea 
 of irrigation — The means of irrigation very gene- 
 ral in Britain— -Sketches of this mode of improve* 
 ment. 
 
BRITISH GEORGICa 
 
 NOVEMBER. 
 
 W hile wind and rain drive through the half-stripped 
 
 trees,, 
 Fanners and flails go merrily in the barn. 
 Each brook and river sweeps along deep tinged, 
 While down the glen, louder and quicker, sounds 
 The busy mill-clack. On the woqdland paths 
 No more the leaves rustle, but matted lie, • 
 
 All drenched and soiled ; the foliage of the oak, 
 Blent with the lowliest leaves that decked the brier, 
 Or creeping bramble, mouldering to decay. 
 
18± BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Oft at this season, near an oozy spring, 
 O'erhung by alder boughs, the woodcock haunts ; 
 (Sure .harbinger, when thus so early come, 
 Of early winter tedious and severe) ; 
 There he imbibes his watery food ; till, scared 
 By man and dog, upward, on pinion strong, 
 He springs, and o'er the summits of the grove, 
 Flies far, unless^ flashing, the quick-aimed tube* 
 Arrest his flight, and bring him lifeless down, 
 With his long bleeding bill sunk in the marsh. 
 
 From hawless thorn to brier, the chirping flocks 
 Flit shivering, while, behind yon naked hedge. 
 Drooping, the cattle stand, waiting the hour 
 When to the shed or stall they shall return. 
 
 Ye who, on Spring's return, a smooth thick sward 
 Upon' your fields would see, must spare them now,. 
 At sunny intervals, you may indulge 
 
NOVEMBER, ISi 
 
 Your prisoned herd to pick the withering blade, 
 
 And the fresh breeze inhale, or to the bank 
 
 Of the swollen river wend, to quench their thirst. 
 
 But if your soil be clay, let not a hoof 
 
 E'er cross your fields, save when the frosty power 
 
 Has hardened them against the poaching hoof. 
 
 Old leas may now be ploughed, though on the plougfe 
 Patters the hail shower, whitening all the ridge. 
 But loose betimes, and through the shallow pond 
 Drive the tired team ; then bed them snug and warm,; 
 And with no stinting hand their toil reward. 
 Assiduous care the waning year requires, 
 For then all animated nature tends 
 To sickliness and death. Much it imports 
 To cleanse each hoof and pastern ;, but beware 
 Of clipping close the fetlock, robbing thus 
 The fretted skin of Nature's simple fence 
 Against the contact of the encrusting soiL 
 
186 BRITISH GE0RG1CS, 
 
 While on the turnip fields in portions due 
 Staked off, the bleating flock their juicy meal 
 Nibbling^ partake, let not their nightly lair 
 Be on the mould ; but give them free access 
 To some adjoining field,, where, on the sward,, 
 A drier bed shortens the winter night. 
 
 Oft; after boisterous days, the rack glides off* 
 And night serene succeeds, cloudless and calm, 
 Unrolling all the glories of the sky. 
 Who would regret the shortened winter day, 
 Which shrouds, in light, that spectacle sublime ! 
 Who would regret the summer landscape's charm I 
 O bounteous Night ! to every eye that rolls, — 
 Whether retired in rural solitudes, 
 Or to thronged cities, or to desert shores 
 Exiled, — -thou spread'st that sight superb, 
 And through the hopeless heart shoot'st gleams of joy. 
 Thou shew'st to weary man his glorious home. 
 As on that happy eve, when peals of peace 
 
NOVEMBER. 187 
 
 (Ah, short-lived peace !) rang through Britannia's 
 
 realms, 
 The homeward veteran, as he weary gained 
 Some mountain brow, beheld, far through the gloom, 
 His native city all one blaze of light ; 
 Joy filled his eyes with tears, joy nerved his limbs^ 
 That now, at last, to all whom he held dear, 
 He should return, and never more depart. 
 
 Sometimes November nights are thick bedimmed 
 With hazy vapours, floating o'er the ground, 
 Or veiling from the view the starry host. 
 At such a time, on piashy mead or fen, 
 A faintish light is seen, by southern swains 
 Called Will-a- Wisp : Sometimes, from rushy bush 
 To bush it leaps, or, cross a little rill, 
 Dances from side to side in winding race ; 
 Sometimes, with stationary blaze, it gilds 
 The heifer's horns ; or plays upon the mane 
 Of farmer's horse returning from the fair, 
 
188 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 And lights him on his way ; yet often proves 
 A treacherous guide., misleading from the path 
 To faithless bogs, and solid-seeming ways. 
 Sometimes it haunts the church-yard ; up and down 
 The tomb-stone's spiky rail streaming, it shews 
 Faint glimpses of the rustic sculptor s art, — 
 Time's scythe and hour-glass, and the grinning skul!^ 
 And bones transverse, which, at an hour like this^ 
 To him, who, passing, casts athwart the wall 
 A fearful glance, speaks with a warning knell.—- 
 Sometimes to the lone traveller it displays 
 The murderer's gibbet, and his tattered garb, 
 As lambently along the links it gleams. 
 
 While harmlessly, in northern regions, play 
 These fires phosphoric, in the tropic climes 
 The midnight hours are horribly illumed 
 With sheeted lightning ; bright the expanding flame 
 Eeddens the boiling ocean wave, and clear 
 Displays the topmast cordage, where on high 
 
NOVEMBER. 1S9 
 
 The ship-boy, trembling, hands the gleaming ropes ; 
 While at the helm, appalled, the steersman scans 
 The reeling compass, or*, despairing, sees 
 The shivered mast ; or, in his eyes, receives 
 The searing flash, and rolls the extinguished orbs, 
 And wishes, but in vain, that once again 
 He could behold the horrors of the storm. 
 
 Even such a man I've seen by cottage fire, 
 Relating to the child, that on his knee 
 Played with his visage sorrowful, yet mild, 
 The wonders of the deep, while busy wheels 
 And distaffs stop, and every ear and eye 
 Drinks in the dreadful tale, and many a tear 
 Is shed by her whose truelove ploughs the main. 
 Then homebred histories but short appear:-— 
 Some tell how witches, circling mossy cairns, 
 Far o'er the heath, dance till the moon arise, 
 Or on the martyr's stone their horrid feast 
 Set out ; in dead men's skulls for dishes ranged. 
 
190 BRITISH GEORGICSs 
 
 Perhaps the fairy gambols are the theme. — 
 
 How hand in hand, around the broomy knowe* 
 
 Beneath the silver moon,, they featly trip ; 
 
 Or, by some roofless mill,, their revels hold 
 
 Upon the millstone lying on the green; 
 
 Or o'er the filmy ice (to their light steps 
 
 A floor of adamant) thrid through the dance,, 
 
 With shadowy heel to heel reflected clear, — 
 
 Till, harsh, the tower-perched howlet screech a note 
 
 Discordant with aerial minstrelsy, 
 
 Or o'er the moon a cloud begins to float, 
 
 # 
 Then, with the flying beam, before the shade, 
 
 In gleamy dance, they shoot o'er hill and dale, 
 
 Amid November's gloom, a morn serene 
 Will sometimes intervene, o'er cottage roof, 
 And grassy blade, spreading the hoarfrost bright, 
 That crackles crisp when marked by early foot ; 
 But soon, beneath the sun-beam, melts away 
 The beauteous crustwork^ leaving the blanched sward 
 
NOVEMBER. 191 
 
 Hung, as with dew-drops on a summer's morn, 
 
 Alas, the impearled sward no. summer tint 
 
 Displays ; withered it lies, or faintly tinged 
 
 With sickly verdure, save by fountain brink, 
 
 Or margin of some slowly-flowing rill : 
 
 There, through the Winter's cold and Summer's hea^ 
 
 A vivid verdure winds, in contrast marked 
 
 With Nature's faded charms, like fresh festoons 
 
 Of summer-flowers on waning Beauty's brow T . 
 
 In spots like these, the last of Autumn's flowers 
 
 Droop, lingering ; there the earliest snow-drop peeps, 
 
 Hence Irrigation's power at first was learn t^ 
 
 A custom ancient, yet but rarely used 
 
 In cold and watery climes ; though even there 
 
 No mode of melioration has been found 
 
 Of more effect, or with more ease obtained, 
 
 Through various regions of Britannia's isle., 
 In every field are found abundant means 
 Of irrigation : every brawling brook, 
 
192 BRITISH GEOftGIC:* 
 
 Or tinkling runnel, offers copious draughts 
 Of watery nutriment, the food -of plants. 
 But only then 'tis useful, when the land 
 Is dry by nature, art, or seasons fair ; 
 And chiefly when in herbage for the scythe, 
 Or browsing lip, 
 
 A free and porous soil 
 Upon a gravelly bed, at all times drinks, 
 Yet ne'er is quenched. — Who owns a soil like this, 
 If through his fields a little mountain-stream, 
 Not sunk in channel deep, but murmuring down 
 'Tween gently-sloping banks, a mine of wealth 
 ^Possesses in that stream : A dam, half stone 
 Half turf, athwart he rears, then from each side, 
 Along his fields he slanting conduits draws, 
 Which, with a flow scarce visible, supply 
 The smaller branches, till, o'er all his leas, 
 And meadows green, he, in a summer day, 
 Spreads the whole stream, leaving the channel bare,-* 
 
NOVEMBER. 193 
 
 Save at some little pools, where, lurking, lie 
 
 The fearful trouts, that from the schoolboy's hand 
 
 Seek refuge vain, 'neath stones or shelving rock. 
 
 Nor is it only in the sultry months 
 He leads the freshening fertilizing lymph* 
 Even in this humid month he overflows 
 The withering grass, but soon again withdraws 
 The streams prolific : deep the verdure sprouts 
 In close luxuriance ; daisies bud anew, 
 And to the sloping wintry beam half ope 
 Their crimson-tinted flow'rets, closing soon ; 
 For soon they, shrinking, feel 'tis not the breath 
 Of early Spring, that woos them to unfold. 
 
 In grounds, by art laid dry, the aqueous bane 
 That marred the wholesome herbs, is turned to use : 
 And drains, while drawing noxious moisture off, 
 Serve also to diffuse a due supply, 
 
 R 
 
194? BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Some soils of clay, obdurately compact, 
 Foil every effort of the draining art. 
 Deluged in weeping seasons, they retain 
 The falling floods ; each furrow is a pool. 
 There irrigation serves no useful end,. 
 Unless in summer drouths, and, at such times* 
 No land more needs the irrigating aid. 
 For cla}^ though ranked among the humid soi!s> 
 Is in itself the driest of them all : 
 The cloud-descended water it retains, 
 But yet excludes, and on the surface bears ; 
 Which soon, as by the fervid summer beam 
 Exhaled, leaves the unmoistened soil to cling 
 Around each root, and yawn with many a cleft,. 
 
 Some level fields, through all the winter months, 
 Are covered warmly with a watery sheet : 
 Here a rich sward upshoots of lively green, 
 Till stopt by contact with its icy soof; 
 And when at last, upon a sunny morn> 
 
NOVEMBEK. 195 
 
 While vernal breezes curl the smooth expanse, 
 The liquid veil withdraws^— a reeking mist 
 Mantles the plain, till Zephyr gently sweep 
 The rolling wreaths away, unfolding wide 
 A verdant carpet broidered o'er with flower?. 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS, 
 
 DECEMBER, 
 
 u The sweeping blast, the sky o*er»cast? 
 
 The joyless Winter day, 
 Let others fear, to me more dear 
 
 Than all the pride of May* 
 
 Burns, 
 
ARGUMENT, 
 
 Wind and sleet— A cottage in ruins— Whirlwinds— 
 Secure thatch of stacks and house — Snow — Recom- 
 Tnendation to strew food for birds — Their use to the 
 farmer in destroying insects — The redbreast — The 
 sun appearing faintly through clouds — The labour* 
 er—His home employments during the day— His 
 cheerful fireside — A contrast — Country deserted by 
 those who possessed the power of mitigating the 
 hardships of the peasant's lot— Resort to towns — 
 —Dissipation — A route — The theatre — A concert- 
 Superior enjoyment of those who observe the good 
 old hospitality of Christmas in the country— Hogg- 
 
 vianay Various customs— A midnight storm— 
 
 Dawn— Conclusion, 
 
BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 DECEMBEB, 
 
 JLofrD raves the blast, and, snell, the sleety showers 
 Drive over hill and dale with hurrying sweep. 
 The leafless boughs all to one point are bent, 
 And the lithe beech-tops horizontal stream* 
 Like shivered pennon from some dipping mast. 
 Dismal the wind howls through yon thatchless rocffc 
 The cottage skeleton, from whence exiled, 
 The inmates pine in some dark city lane.. 
 Thinking of that dear desolated home, 
 Where many a summer sun they saw go down ; 
 Where many a winter night, around the fire* 
 
200 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 They heard the storm rave o'er the lowly roof. 
 
 Forlorn it stands. Ah ! who is he that views 
 
 The ruin drear, still wandering round and round, 
 
 With doubting aspect, yet with watery eye ! 
 
 Fain would he disbelieve it is the place 
 
 Where he, in innocence and humble peace. 
 
 His infancy and youth had happy spent, 
 
 Till, lured away, he left his parents sad, 
 
 And sought the sea, anticipating oft 
 
 Jlis glad return to aid their downward years : 
 
 And now returned, with expectation full, 
 
 To greet each kinsman s gladdened face, and share 
 
 His hard-worn treasure with the friends he loved, 
 
 And visit all his boyish haunts, he finds, instead, 
 
 A 11 desolate : in speechless gaze, awhile 
 
 He stands, then turns in agony and weeps, 
 
 In bitterness of soul, — as when a bird, 
 
 A-roaming gone for food to feed her young, 
 
 Returning to the well-known bush, beholds 
 
 A mossy tuft, where once had hung her nest,—*- 
 
DECEMBER. 201 
 
 Drooping, she perches on her wonted spray, 
 Then, in a plaintive strain, repeated oft, 
 Monotonous, laments her piteous lot. 
 
 On brier and thorn, some straggling hips and haws 
 Still linger, while, behind the leafless hedge 
 Co wring, the sheep stand fixed in rueful gaze. 
 Oft now, a whirlwind, eddying down the vale, 
 Uncovers stacks, or on the cottage roof 
 Seizing amain, sweeps many a wisp aloft, 
 High vanishing amid the hurrying clouds. 
 At such a time, oft to your stackyard look, 
 And smooth the slightest ruffling of the thatch, 
 Binding it firmly down with added coils. 
 To guard your roof against the furrowing gust, 
 The harrows, till a calmer hour arrive, 
 Fencing the weaker parts, will save the whole, 
 
 When broadened hovering flakes begin to wheel, 
 And whiten hill and vale, the fowler lays 
 
202 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 His treacherous lure, and watches till he see 
 The scattered snow raised by some fluttering wing, 
 Then forward darts to seize his captive prey. 
 Strew rather thou the food without the snare ! 
 A little sprinkling saves, from Famine's power, 
 Full many a beauteous songster, whose sweet pipe. 
 In early spring, repays the trifling boon. 
 But songs are not the sole return they make : 
 Foes of the insect race through every change, — 
 The embryotic egg, in bark or leaf 
 Deposited; the maggot, chrysalis, 
 And winged bane, they ceaseless!}' destroy. 
 
 Of all the feathered tribes, that flock around 
 The house or barn for shelter and for food, 
 The redbreast chiefly, — sweetest trustful bird,— 
 Demands protection from the coming storm. 
 Your open window then with crumbs bestrew. 
 Inviting entrance ; — soon he'll venture in 
 And hop around, nor fear at last to perch 
 
DECEMBER. 203 
 
 Upon the distaff of the humming wheel, 
 Cheering with summer songs the winter day. 
 
 At times the fall abates, and low, through clouds. 
 The struggling sun his dim and shapeless disk 
 Faintly displays, wan as a watery moon, 
 And almost tempts the labourer to his task. 
 But when he sees the transient beam withdrawn, 
 He shuts again his door, and turns his hand 
 To home employment, — mending now a hive, 
 With bark of brier darned pliant through the seams % 
 Or, looking forward through the wintry gloom 
 To summer days, and meadows newly mown, 
 Repairs his toothless rake ; or feeds his bees ; 
 Or drives a nail into his studded shoon ; 
 Or twists a wisp, and winds the spiral steps 
 Around the henroost ladder ; deeply fixed, 
 Meanwhile, his children quit their play, and stand 
 With look enquiring, and enquiring tongue, 
 Admiring much his skill. Thus glides the day; 
 
204? BRITISH GEORGICS* 
 
 Thus glide the evening hours, when laid to rest 
 His imps are stilled, and with its deep-toned hum 
 The wool-wheel joins the excluded tempest's howl. 
 Perhaps some neighbour braves the blast, and cheers 
 The fire-side ring ; then blaze the added peats, 
 Or moss-dug faggot, brightening roof and wall, 
 And rows of glancing plates that grace the shelves. 
 The jest meanwhile, or story of old times, 
 Goes cheery round ; or, from some well-soiled page, 
 Are read the deeds of heroes, by the light 
 Mayhap of brands, whereon, when greenwood trees 
 Were all their canopy, their armour hung. 
 
 Alas ! in many a cottage no bright blaze 
 Cheers the low roof ; but cowring, shivering, round 
 The semblance of a fire, a single peat, 
 Or bunch of gathered sticks, that scarce return 
 A feeble glimmer to the fanning breath, 
 The inmates, poor, pine the long eve away, 
 Perhaps around the couch of pain they wait. 
 
DECEMBER. 205 
 
 And minister in darkness to the sick ; 
 Or sad, upon a deathbed watching, lean, 
 And only know the parting moment past 
 By the cold lip, the cold and stiffening hand. 
 
 Ah me ! the rural vale deserted lies, 
 By those who hold the power to mitigate 
 The hardships of the peasant's humble lot. 
 To cities fled, they listless haunt the rounds 
 Of dissipation, falsely- pleasure called. 
 The crowded route blazes with dazzling glare 
 Of multitudinous lights, a senseless shew, 
 Of insipidity the very shrine. 
 From groupe to groupe behold the trifler range % 
 Now listening to the nothings of the fair ; 
 Now telling o'er and o'er, to each new audience., 
 Some new intelligence which all have heard, 
 Or meagre jest, picked from the very crumbs 
 And scraps he gathered at some witling's board S 
 
206 BRITISH GEOR&ICS, 
 
 Or mark liis counterpart, the languid maid* 
 
 Affecting apathy beyond that share 
 
 Which Nature, with no stinted hand, bestowed, 
 
 Another, sensitive all o'er, would shrink, 
 
 Or seem to shrink, from view, yet is attired, — . 
 
 Like flower in hoar-frost veiled, whose every leaf,. 
 
 And every tiny fold, and bosom fair, 
 
 Is obvious to the eye, though hid its hue, 
 
 See some o'erlook the hushed divan, who stake 
 A village on the turning of a card. 
 
 Or does the crowded theatre precede 
 These midnight orgies ? there, too, Folly rule^ 
 And crowns her votaries with ephemeral bays,— 
 While far apart, the Tragic Muse, inspired 
 By Shakespeare's spirit, speaking from a cloud 
 Of thunder, meditates her lofty theme^ 
 And awes, or melts, -by turns, a listening world. 
 
DECEMBER. 207 
 
 Perhaps the feast of music draws the crowd, 
 Who, glutted even to surfeit, still with praise. 
 With yawning admiration, daub the man, 
 That, with bold fingers, gloriously ascends 
 Three straw-breadths higher, on the tortured string, 
 Than his compeers, and thence extracts 
 A squeak, a little squeak, that much delights,— 
 Because less grating than most other squeaks. 
 
 Such are the scenes which rob the wintry months 
 Of those whom duty, interest, pleasure, call 
 A country life to lead. How far surpass 
 The pleasures which the few, who still observe 
 The good old customs of the Christmas tide ; 
 Who see their halls with happy faces thronged, 
 The rich, the poor, the old and young, all joined 
 In social harmony, — how far surpass 
 Their pleasures, those extracted from the round 
 Of city life^ from various sameness^ dull 
 
208 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Laborious merriment, and all the salves, 
 The antidotes against the bane of Time ! 
 
 Of all the festive nights which customs old, 
 And waning fast, have made the poor man's own., 
 The merriest of them all is Hoggmanay. 
 Then from each cottage window, 'mid the gloom, 
 A brighter ray shoots through the fallen flakes, — 
 And glimmering lanterns gleam, like Will-a-Wisp 
 Athwart the fields, or, mounting over stiles, 
 Evanish suddenly : no dread is now 
 Of walking wraith, or witch, or cantrip fell ; 
 For Superstition's self this night assumes 
 A smiling aspect, and a fearless mien, 
 And tardy Prudence slips the leash from Joy, 
 To meeting lovers now no hill is steep, 
 No river fordless, and no forest dark ; 
 And when they meet, unheeded sweeps the blast. 
 Unfelt the snow, as erst from summer thorn, 
 
DECEMBER. ' 209 
 
 Around them fell a shower of fading flowers, 
 Shook by the sighing of the evening breeze. 
 
 With smutted visages, from house to house, 
 In country and in town, the guisarts range, 
 And sing their madrigals, though coarse and rude, 
 
 With willing glee that penetrates the heart. 
 
 i 
 
 O ! it delights my heart, that unstained joy 
 
 Of thoughtless boyhood. Spurn you from my door !— •* 
 
 No, no, rush freely in, and share my fire, 
 
 And sing through all your roll of jovial lilts, 
 
 But older folks their chairs and stools draw in 
 Around the fire, and form a circle blythe. 
 With riddles quaint, and tricks, and ancient taleSj, 
 They pass the time, while oft the reaming horn, 
 From hand to hand passed round, arrests midway 
 The story-teller in his long-spun tale,— 
 Which, not thus baulked, he soon again resumes^ 
 And interweaves full many an episode. 
 o 
 
210 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 The temperate banquet done, their several hornet 
 Timely they seek, resolved, ere morning dawn, 
 With smoking pints, to greet friends, lovers, kin. 
 
 Some blyther bevies, till the midnight hour, 
 .^Around the cheerful board their mirth protract, 
 To drink a welcome to the good new year ; 
 Then crossing arms, with hands enlinked all round^ 
 All voices join in some old song, and full 
 The tide of friendly harmony o'erflows ! 
 
 December, all thy aspects have their charm; 
 The sky o'ercast, the sweeping rack, the calm 
 And cloudless day, when reeling midges warp 
 In sunny nook; yea, even the raving storm, 
 
 I love the music of the midnight storm, 
 When wild, careering, drive the winds and rains, 
 And loud and louder, through the sounding grove^ 
 The Spirit of the Tempest seems to howl,. 
 
DECEMBER* 212 
 
 And loud and louder beats the furious blast, 
 As if some giant hand, with doubling strokes. 
 Struck the strong wall, and shook it to its base. 
 Awful the mustering pause, when all is hushed 
 Save the fierce river's roar ! How cheering now 
 And heartening, sounds the crow of Morning's bird ! 
 How deep the darkness ! save when sudden gleams 
 Dazzle the eye, that ventures to explore 
 The awful secrets of the solemn hour, 
 
 Gradual the storm abates, and welcome peeps 
 The long-expected dawn, gloomy at first, 
 But tinging by degrees, with copper hue, 
 The slowly flying clouds. Most pleasant hour 
 Of daybreak ! at all seasons fraught with gladness, 
 Whether the sun in summer splendour rise, 
 Hailed by a thousand choristers on wing 
 Suspended high, or perched on dewy bough ; 
 Or whether, through the wintry lowring sky, 
 He shoots his watery beam far from the south;— 
 
212 BRITISH GEORGICS. 
 
 Thou makest the heart of all that lives expand, 
 
 Man, bird, and beast, with joy ; but chiefly man, 
 
 As looking with complacent eye around, 
 
 On this grand frame of things slowly illumed, 
 
 He worships, not in words, but heavenward thoughts, 
 
 Submiss and lowly, that vast power which launched, 
 
 Impels this mighty mass, and guides it round, — 
 
 True to its annual and diurnal course ;— 
 
 Stupendous miracle ! — this mighty mass 
 
 Hurled loose, through realms immense of trackless 
 
 space, 
 With speed, compared to which the viewless ball. 
 Projected from the cannon's mouth, but creeps 
 At a snail's pace, yet without shock or pause^ 
 Or deviation infinitely small, 
 Rolling along, with motion unperceived, 
 As if it moveless lay on Ether's tide. 
 
NOTES. 
 
NOTES ON JANUARY. 
 
 Note L 
 
 -Thi; various voice, 
 
 That to the heart, with eloquence divine, isV.*— P. 4. 
 — — _ — . — -_« O, mysterious Night ! 
 
 44 Thou art not silent ; many tongues hast thou." 
 JOANNA Bail lie. 
 
 Note II, 
 *• The first-foof s entering step. — P. 5. 
 
 t; It is supposed that the welfare and prosperity of every 
 family, especially the fair part of it, depend very much upon 
 the character of the person who is first admitted into the 
 house on the beginning of the new year. Hence every sus- 
 pected person is carefully excluded ; and the lasses generally 
 engage beforehand some favoured youth, who willingly comes, 
 happy in being honoured with that signal mark of female dis- 
 tinction." — Notes to Njcot's Poems, pejies Jamisson's D.<V- 
 tionary* 
 
210 NOTZS ON JANUARY 
 
 Note III. 
 
 -The steaming fiaggon, horns 
 
 From house to house. — P. 5. 
 
 This is called a Jiet-pint> " a hot-beverage, which it is cus- 
 tomary for young people to carry with them from house to 
 house on new-year's eve, or early in the morning of the new 
 year." — Jamie s ox's Diet. 
 
 Note IV. 
 
 A hedge full grown, if with a hedge now joined \ 
 Or circling belt, the climate of your field 
 Improves, transmutes from bleak and shivering cold 
 To genial warmth. — P. 7. 
 
 " In a mountainous country, and in bleak moorish situa- 
 tions, nothing tends more to encrease the value of the soil, 
 than plantations properly distributed. They give shelter both 
 to the cattle and to the corn crops ; and by preventing the 
 warmth which is produced by proper manures, and by the 
 germination of vegetables, from being dissipated, they give 
 effect to all the efforts of industry. Accordingly, in such 
 boos, plantations are no sooner reared, than the whole 
 face of the country round them assumes an improving aspect, 
 and displays a richer verdure. When suddenly cut down, in 
 
NOTES ON JANUARY. 21t 
 
 consequence of the necessities of an improvident proprietor, 
 the reverse of all this occurs. Vegetation is chilled by the 
 piercing blasts which now meet with no resistance, and the 
 cattle droop from want of shelter ; so that in a few years the 
 place can scarcely be known."— Forsyth, vol. ii. p. 365. 
 
 Note V. 
 
 -For t/tfre a vivid green 
 
 Tinges your early s<ward> there lingers long*— P. 7. 
 
 Shelter not only makes the grass spring early, and return its 
 verdure late, and thus produces an additional quantity of food 
 for cattle ; but it also makes less food necessary. Nothing 
 whets the appetite so much as cold ; and one reason is, that 
 an additional stimulus is necessary to keep up the animal heat» 
 Hence a cow or a horse, exposed on a bleak lea to every wind 
 that blows, will eat twice as much food as one whose pasture- 
 range is well protected by trees or hedges ; and yet the effect 
 of this additional quantity of nourishment will not be percep- 
 tible in fattening the animal. The additional stimulus, and 
 the vital energy which that stimulus excites, are partly ex- 
 pended m producing a quite different effect, viz. preserving the 
 animal from the cold. In the same way, a plant or tree, 
 growing in an exposed situation, will be slow of growth and 
 stunted, compared to others of the same species planted in a 
 goil of the same quality, but protected from the winds. 
 
 But hedges and plantations ought not to be viewed as mere- 
 ly local improvements of this or that particular property. Jz 
 
218 notes cy ;. 
 
 is obvious, that when they are general over the face of a 
 country, that country must -be less injured by high winds than 
 an open one. Wnat is the violence of the wind owing to at 
 sea, or on the sea-shore, when the wind blows from the sea, 
 or on the top of a mountain, but to the want of obstacles pre- 
 senting repeated checks to its violence ? When free of such 
 obstacles, vires acquirit ewido. 
 
 Note VI. 
 
 List not to him, who says that sheltered fields 
 Suffer from lack of air \ Zfc. — P. 9. 
 
 There is, no doubt, a degree in which shelter may be inju- 
 rious. In a flat low country, if small fields be surrounded 
 with hedge-rows, grain crops will be injured by the want of a 
 free circulation of air. At the same time, there is often more 
 of fancy than sound reason in the apprehension, that hedge- 
 rows are on the whole hurtful. Shelter merely produces an 
 artificial calm ; that is, it retards the current of the air ; but 
 while it retards, it certainly never can stop the current. Nei- 
 ther can it prevent, what is of more consequence to the health 
 of animal as well as vegetable life, the imperceptible -change 
 of one stratum of the atmosphere with another. This is con- 
 stantly going on by the ascent of the lower and warmer strata, 
 and the descent of the higher and colder. I have often won- 
 dered, how the air, in the heart of so extensive a city as Lon- 
 don, continued at all fit for respiration during hot, calm, sum- 
 mer weather ; but the constant interchange between the lower 
 and higher regions of the air accounts for this. 
 
NOTES ON JANUARY. 219 
 
 Note VII. 
 
 Then see their nightly lair he warm and clean.—! 3 . 15. 
 
 According to Johnson, lair signifies " the couch of a boar, 
 or wild-beast? 1 He is evidently under a mistake in giving the 
 word this limited signification ; and into this mistake he seems 
 to have been led by his conjectural etymology, viz. that the 
 word is derived from lai, a French word signifying a sow or a 
 forest ; whereas the Word is evidently formed from the prete* 
 rite lay of the verb to lie. The very authority which Johnson 
 quotes is in direct opposition to the idea, that the word signi- 
 fies exclusively the couch of a wild-beast. 
 
 " Thy care must now proceed 
 
 To teeming females and the promised breed ; 
 First let them run at large, and never know 
 The taming yoke, or draw the crooked plough ; 
 Let them not leap the ditch, or swim the flood ; , 
 Or lumber o'er the meads ; or cross the wood : 
 Eut range the forest, by the silver side 
 Of some cool stream, where Nature shall provide 
 Green grass and fattening clover for their fare ; 
 And mossy caverns for their noon-tide lair? * 
 
 Dryden's Geor. iii. 1. 225. 233, 
 
 In another passage, the word lair is explicitly used to de- 
 note the couch of domestic animals within doors- 
 
220 NOTES ON JANUARY. 
 
 " Next, let thy goats officiously be nursed, 
 And led to living streams, to quench their thirst. 
 Feed them with winter browse, and, for their lair, 
 A cote, that opens to the south, prepare." 
 
 Geor. iii. 1. 473* 
 
 Note VIII, 
 
 ■ Nor is it wasteful care i 
 
 For thus, 'gainst Spring's return, l^r.— P. 15. 
 
 " As to litter, it is an object of such importance, that pro- 
 vision for the system should be gradually made through the 
 winter, if corn enough be not left for summer-threshing to 
 supply the beasts. All wheat-stubbles should be cut and 
 stacked ; leaves, in woodland countries, should be collected ; 
 fern procured from commons and warrens ; rushes and aquatic 
 weeds stored from fens, &c. ; and, if nothing else can be had, 
 heaps of sand formed for this use ; for which peat also is ex- 
 cellent. An enterprising, vigilant farmer, when he has such 
 an object as this in view, will exert every nerve to be prepar- 
 ed for a system, the profit of which will depend so much on 
 the care previously taken to be well provided with litter of 
 some sort or other." — Young's Farmer's Calendar, May. 
 
 The management of litter in the dunghill is often very ab- 
 surd. It is well known, that, without moisture, straw will 
 remain in the state of straw for a very long time. Now, 
 many farmers, by way of having a very neat dunghill, build 
 k up like a stock* I have seen some of these dung-stacks ten 
 
NOTES ON JANUARY. 221 
 
 feet in height. The consequence is, that the little moisture 
 which the litter has brought with it from the stable, soon 
 sinks to the bottom, or evaporates. From such dung-hills 
 the farmer may be rather said to thatch than to manure his 
 fields. 
 
 Note IX. 
 Scared from her reedy citadel, the swan, £^r.— P. 21, 
 
 The beautiful loch of Duddingston has for several ages been 
 the habitation of swans. That their settlement there is not of 
 very recent date, there is the following curious piece of evi- 
 dence. " March 6. 1688. At privy-council, the Duchess of 
 Lauderdale pursues Sir James Dick of Priestfield for a riot, in 
 so far as she having taken out of Duddingston loch five of the 
 swans, which, or their parents, were put in by her lord ; he 
 took them back again except two ; for which he broke up 
 doors, which no constable, by the act of parliament 1661, is 
 allowed to do. 2do, He could not sibi jus dicere.<—Alledged, 
 The swans were his own, he standing infeft in the loch, and 
 consequently in all that fed on it ; and though they were ferte 
 naturce, yet they were like wild beasts inclosed in his park, or 
 fish in his ponds ; and though the first were put in by the 
 Duke of Lauderdale, yet the product was Sir James's. The 
 Lords of Privy-Council found, If they had come of their own 
 accord, and bigged (built) there, that they were Sir James's; 
 but since the owner who put them in was known, they found 
 they belonged to the Duchess ; and that Sir James's tolerance 
 
222 NOTES ON JANUARY, 
 
 to let them stay in his loch, did not make them his. Upon 
 which he turned all the rest out of his loch. But Duke Ha^ 
 milton alleging, that the loch bounded with the King's-park, 
 and so belonged to him, he put them in again ; and thus took 
 possession, in the king's name, of the loch ; which will co?t 
 Sir James a declarator of property to clear his right," — Fqun- 
 tainhall's Decisions, vol. i. p. 501. 
 
 Note X, 
 
 i The long-expected tryst. 
 
 To play their yearly bonspiel. — P. 21. 
 
 " Bonspel, a match at the diversion of curling on the ice* 
 between two opposite parishes." — Jamieson's Diet. 
 
 Note XL 
 
 Dear to the peasant"* $ heart his fireside blaze,. 
 
 And floor new-swept, to greet his glad return. — P. 24 » 
 
 " At e'en, when he comes weary frae the hill, 
 I'll hae a' things made ready to his will : 
 In winter, when he toils through win*.* and rain, 
 A bleezing ingle and a clean hearth-stane. 
 As soon as he flings by his plaid and staff, 
 The seething-pot's be ready to tak' aff." — 
 
 Gentle Shepherd. 
 
NOTES ON JANUARY. 223 
 
 Note XII. 
 And sliakes the frame ', <when Fawdorfs ghost appears. — P. 25. 
 
 The increasing loudness of the horn, that preceded the 
 approach of Fawdon's ghost, is well imagined and. well de- 
 scribed : 
 
 " When that ailayne Wallace was levit there, 
 The awful blast aboundit meikle mair." 
 
 History of Sir William Walla.ee, book v. L 1ST. 
 
 The history of Wallace by Henry, commonly called Blind 
 Harry, is a standard book in the small collection of the Scot- 
 tish peasant. Of this book Burns, in a short sketch which he 
 gives of his early years, addressed to Dr Moore, thus expresses 
 himself: " The story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice 
 into my veins, which will boil along there, till the flood-gates 
 of life shut in eternal rest." I "have no doubt that many of 
 the noblest strains of Scotia's lyre, as well as the most splendid 
 achievements of her warriors, have had their origin in the lay 
 of this ancient minstrel 
 
£2£ NOTES ON JANUARY. 
 
 Note XIII. 
 This is no tale which fabling poets dream. — P. 25. 
 
 For the general truth of the picture which I have drawn, 
 I appeal to the excellent remarks en the peasantry of Scotland 
 with which Dr Currie has prefaced his Life of Burns. He 
 there says, M A slight acquaintance with the peasantry of 
 Scotland will serve to convince an unprejudiced observer, that 
 they possess a degree of intelligence not generally found among 
 the same class of men in the other countries of Europe. In 
 the very humblest condition of the Scottish peasants every one 
 can read, and most persons are more or less skilled in writing 
 and arithmetic ; and under the disguise of their uncouth ap- 
 pearance, and of their peculiar manners and dialect, a stranger 
 will discover that they possess a curiosity, and have obtained a 
 degree of information, corresponding to these acquirements. 
 
 " These advantages they owe to the legal provision made 
 t>y the parliament of Scotland, in 1646, for the establishment 
 ©f a school in every parish throughout the kingdom, for the 
 express purpose of educating the poor ; a law which may chal- 
 lenge comparison with any act of legislation to be' found in 
 the records of history, whether we consider the wisdom of the 
 ends in view, the simplicity of the means employed, or the 
 provisions made to render these means effectual to their pur- 
 pose. This excellent statute was repealed on the accession of 
 Charles II. in 1660, together with all the other laws passed 
 during the commonwealth, as not being sanctioned by the 
 
;Z3 ON JANUAiT. 2^5 
 
 royal assent. It slept during the reigns of Charles and James, 
 but was re-enacted, precisely in the same terms, by the Scot- 
 tish parliament, after the revolution in 1696 ; and this is the 
 last provision on the subject." 
 
 In the opinion which immediately follows, viz. that the ef- 
 fects of parish schools " may be considered to have commenced 
 about the period of the Union," I think Dr Currie is under a 
 mistake. The institution itself commenced in the year 1616, 
 under the authority of an act of privy council ; that regula- 
 tion was enacted into a law in the year 1633 ; and though the 
 mode provided for the execution of the law was not the most 
 efficient, the inclination of the country coincided so complete- 
 ly with the views of the legislature, that parish-schools were, 
 soon very generally established throughout the Lowlands of 
 Scotland. The act 1646, too. which contains the very provi- 
 sions that were the law of the land till very lately, was in full 
 force and observance for fourteen years previous to the Restora- 
 tion ; and so powerfully had it, and the previous act of parlia- 
 ment 1633, and act of privy council 1616, operated on the 
 general diffusion of instruction, that in the Lowlands, soon 
 after the Restoration, there were very few persons of mature 
 years who could not read. This fact is noticed by Woddrow, 
 a writer of unquestionable veracity. I have looked for the pas- 
 sage without being able to find it. My recollection of it, 
 however, is distinct to the extent I have mentioned ; and I 
 think that writing is stated as having been also a very general 
 accomplishment. 
 
Q2S NOTES ON JANUARY. 
 
 Note XIV. 
 Deny the right of Englishmen to read. — P. 27. 
 
 It is perfectly plain, that without the institution of parish 
 schoolmasters, supported partly, as in Scotland, at the expence 
 of the public, a great proportion of the children of the lower 
 classes of the people of England must, for want of the means 
 of instruction, remain unable to read. I am far from asserting, 
 that the plan of public instruction lately offered to parliament, 
 by an able, an upright, and independent senator, was a per- 
 fect one. It was thought to be far too complicated in its de- 
 tails. The bill, however, was resisted on the general principle \ 
 that the populace ought not to receive school-education from 
 the public ; and, what is most strange, this resistance was 
 made (if newspaper reports are to be depended on) by a mem- 
 ber whose benevolence is well known, and whose commanding 
 talents have, in one eminent instance, been exerted in behalf 
 of a numerous and most meritorious body of the people. I 
 allude to the act of parliament introducing enlistment for 
 limited service, — a statute which, while it is admirably con- 
 trived for improving the safe efficiency of the vast machine of 
 our national defence, is (at least was) of more essential im- 
 portance to the rights and liberties of the commons at large, 
 as well as of the army itself, than any law that has been 
 enacted for half a century. 
 
 It may not be improper here to mention, that the earnest 
 desire of the people of England to avail themselves of oppor- 
 
NOTES ON JANUARY, '227 
 
 tunities of instruction, as well as the miserable deficiency of 
 such opportunities, is most strikingly illustrated by a circum- 
 stance that sometimes occurs, when detachments of English 
 regiments are quartered in the small towns and villages of 
 Scotland. It is then not uncommon to see (and a deeply in- 
 teresting sight it is) the men, with their side-arm?, sitting on 
 the same forms, or at the same desks, with children, learning 
 to read and write. 
 
 Some persons consider the general diffusion of a little learn- 
 ing as chiefiy useful in enabling men to raise themselves above 
 the condition in which they were born. I so far agree with 
 this opinion, as to thmk that a general diffusion of learning- 
 gives genius a fair start, which otherwise it might not have. 
 But I think the chief advantage of that state of knowledge 
 which exists in Scotland, is the happiness which it tends to 
 confer on men being and remaining in those spheres in which 
 they were born and bred. 
 
 In the estimation of some persons, " The great mass of the 
 people are as so many teeth in the wheels of a piece of ma- 
 chinery, of no further value than as they serve to facilitate ; bs 
 movements."-^MRs Hamilton, 
 
NOTES ON FEBRUARY. 
 
 Note I. 
 
 — The sunny side 
 Of gentle slope isjirst to be preferred, 
 
 -there the Sun, 
 
 Great fertiliser ! on the fallow mould 
 
 Strikes powerfully, when at his summer height ± 
 
 With perpendicular ray. — P. 34, 
 
 The fertilizing influence of the sunbeams must be peculiar- 
 ly powerful on a soil that has never been exposed to it. Now 
 that influence is smaller' or greater in proportion as the rays 
 strike the surface at an angle more or less acute ; that is, the 
 influence is greater in proportion as the line of the ray ap- 
 proaches to perpendicularity with respect to the surface shone 
 upon. Hence the surface of a declivity to the south, and the 
 lower stratum of the atmosphere covering that declivity, are 
 often in a state of genial warmth, while a declivity to the 
 north, or even a plain, feels the influence of frost. In a win- 
 ter day, a southward slope, if the rise be not very gentle, ah* 
 
NOTES ON FEBRUARYr 229 
 
 sorbs more of the sun's heat than a plain surface at midsummer. 
 The different effects of the sun, according to the lying of the 
 soil, is no where so obvious as on molehills during a hard frost, 
 the sunny side being often completely thawed, while the other 
 is as hard as stone. — It does not follow from this, that a slope 
 to the sun is the best situation for every crop. In such situa- 
 tions, sown grass, red clover especially, or any other delicate 
 plant, will be apt, in the spring months, to be injured by the 
 violence of the transition from the degree of heat which they' 
 enjoy during the day to the pinching cold of the night. They 
 will also be apt to come forward prematurely. 
 
 Note II. 
 
 First draw a single furrow tip and down, 
 Theti turning, bV. -P. 35. 
 
 This compendious way of laying land dry, and exposing it 
 completely to the influence of the sun and the air, is, with a 
 little variation, the invention of my friend Mr John Mackenzie, 
 merchant in Glasgow, a man whose originality of genius ha< 
 feeen much and successfully exercised on agricultural subiect^ 
 
23-0 NOTES ON FEBRUARY, 
 
 Note IIL 
 
 The compost pile examine now and turn* — P. 40. 
 
 Lord Meadowbank's short treatise on manures contains the* 
 most simple, the most satisfactory, the most concise, and, at 
 the same time, the most complete exposition of the theory and 
 practice of manure that ever I read. His directions as to the 
 management of composts, and particularly of peat compost?, 
 ought to be read and studied by every farmer. They are too 
 long for insertion here ; but I conceive that, by quoting some 
 of the general facts, or rather remarks, with which his Lord- 
 ship prefaces his directions on the subject of peat-moss, I shall 
 confer a favour on the reader, as the pamphlet itself is not to 
 be had in the shops. 
 
 1. u All recently dead animal or vegetable matter, if suffi- 
 ciently divided, moist, and not chilled nearly to freezing, 
 tends spontaneously to undergo changes, that bring it at length 
 to b» a fat greasy earth, which, when mixed with sands, clays, 
 and a little chalk or pounded limestone, forms what is called 
 rich loam, or garden mould. 
 
 2. " In vegetable matter, when amassed in quantities, these 
 changes are at first attended with very considerable heat, (some- 
 times proceeding the length of inflammation), which, when 
 not exceeding blood-heat, greatly favours and quickens the 
 changes, both in animal matter, and the further changes in 
 vegetable matter, that are not sensibly attended with the pro* 
 
NOTES ON FEBRUARY, 231 
 
 duction of heat. The changes attended with heat, are said to 
 happen by a fermentation, named, from what is observed m 
 making of ale, wine, or vinegar. The latter are ascribed to 
 what is called putrefactive fermentation. 
 
 3. " Besides moderate moisture and heat, and that division 
 of parts which admits the air in a certain degree, circumstan- 
 ces which seem to be necessary to the production of these 
 changes, stirring, or mechanical mixture, favours them ; and 
 a similar effect arises from the addition of chalk, pounded, 
 limestone, lime, rubbish of old buildings, or burnt lime brought 
 back to its natural state ; and also of ashes of burnt coal, peat, 
 or wood, soap-leys, soot, sea-shells, and sea-ware. And, on 
 pressure or consolidation, excluding air ; by much water, espe- 
 cially when below the heat of a pool in summer ; by astrin- 
 gents, and by caustic substances, as quicklime, acids, and 
 pure alkalies, at least till their causticity is mollified, at the. 
 expence of the destruction of part of the animal and vegetable 
 matter to which they are added. 
 
 4. " These changes are accomplished by the separation or 
 decomposition of the parts or ingredients of which the dead- 
 vegetables and animals are composed ; by the escape of some- 
 what of their substance in the form of vapours or gasses ; by 
 the imbibing also of somewhat from water, and from the at- 
 mosphere ; and by the formation of compound matters, from 
 the re-union of parts or ingredients, which had been separated 
 by the powers of the living vegetables and animals. The 
 earlier changes, and in general those which take place previous 
 to the destruction of the adhesion and texture of the dead ve- 
 getables and animals, appear to be rather pernicious than fa- 
 vourable to the growth of living vegetables^ exposed to the 
 
2S2 NOTES ON FEBRUARY* 
 
 direct effect of them ; whereas the changes subsequent to the 
 destruction of the animal and vegetable texture, promote 
 powerfully the growth of plants, and, partly by their imme- 
 diate efficacy on the plants exposed to their influence, partly 
 by the alterations they produce in the soil, constitute what is 
 to be considered as enriching manure. 
 
 5. " It should be the object of the farmer to give his soil 
 the full benefit of these latter changes, decompositions, and 
 recompositions, which proceed slowly, and continue to go on 
 for years after the manure is lodged in the soil. Even loam 
 or garden mould is still undergoing some remaining changes of 
 the same sort ; and, by frequently stirring it, or removing it, 
 and using it as a top-dressing, its spontaneous changes are so 
 favoured, that it will yield heavy crops for a time without 
 fresh manure ; or, in other words, it is rendered in so far a 
 manure itself, as it decomposes faster than its ordinary and 
 more stationary state, and, in so doing, nourishes vegetables 
 more abundantly, or forms new combinations in the adjoining 
 soil, that enable it to do so." " It should also be the object 
 of the farmer, to employ the more early changes, not only 
 to bring forward the substances undergoing them into a 
 proper state to be committed to the soil, but to accelerate 
 <;i* retard them, so as to have his manure ready for use 
 at the proper seasons, With as little loss as possible, from part 
 being too much and part too little decomposed ; and also to 
 avail himself of the activity of those changes, to restore to a 
 state of sufficiently rapid spontaneous decomposition, such 
 substances in his farm, as, though in a state of decay, had be- 
 come so stationary as to be unfit for manure, without the aid 
 of heat and mkture. 
 
NOTES ON FEBRUARY. 233 
 
 u By attention to the two first particulars, and the proper 
 use of compression, stirring, and mixture, the farm dunghill, 
 though formed slowly, and of materials in very various states 
 of decay, is brought forward in nearly the same condition. 
 By attention to the latter, manure may, in most situa- 
 tions in Scotland, be tripled or quadrupled ; et Jinum est 
 aurum. On the other hand, by inattention to them, part 
 of the manure is put into the soil unprepared, that is, in a 
 situation where the texture of the vegetable is still entire ; 
 and, its decomposition never having been carried far by the 
 heat and mixture of a fermenting mass, proceeds in the soil 
 so slowly, that, like ploughed-down stubble, it does not merit 
 the name of manure. Part, again, is apt to be too much 
 rotted ; that is, much of it is too nearly approaching to the 
 state of garden mould, whereby much benefit is lost, by the 
 escape of what had been separated during the process it has 
 undergone, and the good effects in the soil of what remains 
 are less durable ; for, between solution in water, and rapid 
 decomposition, from its advanced state of rottenness, it is soon 
 reduced to that of garden mould ; and, in fine, the powers of 
 fermenting vegetable with animal matter, which, when pro- 
 perly employed, are certainly most efficacious in converting 
 into manure many substances that are otherwise very station- 
 ary, and slow in their decomposition, are lest to the farmer ; 
 so that he is often reduced to adopt an imperfect and little 
 profitable mode of cultivation, from the want of the manure 
 requisite for a better, though such manure may be lying in 
 abundance within his reach, but useless, from his ignorance 
 how to prepare it." 
 
234 MOTJiS S..K FEBRUARY 
 
 Note IV. 
 
 » — — — ~~~And toss around the heaps, 
 
 J er all the surface equally dispread. — P. 40., 
 
 To separate manure into minute parts, and mix it equally; 
 is as necessary to its complete and wholesome effect, as the. 
 mastication of food is to the process of digestion. 
 
 Note V. 
 
 The larger harrow, called by some the brake." -P. 41. 
 
 " The necessity of some instrument, more effectual thaa 
 the common harrow, for reducing a stubborn soil, has led 
 farmers to put three or four harrows, one above another, in 
 order to press the undermost into the ground. This substitute 
 to the brake is far inferior in its effect ; beside that the under- 
 most harrow is torn to pieces in an instant. To conclude this 
 article, a farmer, who has no brake, wants a capital instru- 
 ment of husbandry. Its price above that of common harrows v 
 bears no proportion to the profit." 
 
 LordKames's Gentleman Farmer* 
 
NOTES ON FEBRUARY, 235 
 
 Note VI. 
 
 JVor is tlure found a crop that yields increase 
 More sure, abundant, and at smaller charge, 
 Than does the willow grove.— P. 42. 
 
 " It is now a proper time to plant osiers and other sorts of 
 willows. No part of the farmer's business pays better than 
 such plantations, and especially if he has any low, spongy, 
 boggy bottoms near a stream. The land should be formed by 
 spadework into beds, six, eight, or ten feet broad, by narrow 
 ditches ; and if there is a power of keeping water in these 
 cuts at pleasure by a sluice, it is in some seasons very advan- 
 tageous to. do so/'— Young's. Farmer's Calendar* February, 
 
NOTES ON MARCH. 
 
 Note I. 
 
 The broad-leaved plants whose product is their root, 
 
 They least exhaust ; and next the legume tribes, tfc. — P. 53. 
 
 The following remarks by Lord Karnes on the effects of 
 different crops, contain a very distinct and philosophical expo- 
 sition of the principles on which the practice of rotation of 
 crops depends. 
 
 " Culmiferous plants, having small leaves and few in num- 
 ber, depend mostly on the soil for nourishment, and little on 
 the air. During the ripening of the seed, they draw probably 
 their whole nourishment from the soil ; as the leaves by this 
 time, being dry and withered, must have lost their power of 
 drawing nourishment from the air. Now, as culmiferous 
 plants are chiefly cultivated for their seed, and are not cut 
 down till the seed be fully ripe, they may be pronounced all of 
 them to be robbers, some more some less. But such plants, 
 while young, are all leaves ; and in that state draw most of 
 their nourishment from the air. Hence it is, that where cut 
 
NOTES ON MARCH. 237 
 
 green, for food to cattle, a culmiferous crop is far from being 
 a robber. A hay crop, accordingly, even where it consists 
 mostly of rye-grass, is not a robber, provided it be cut before 
 the seed is formed ; which at any rate it ought to be, if one 
 would have hay in perfection. And the.foggage, excluding 
 frost by covering the ground, keeps the roots warm. A legu- 
 minous plant, by its broad leaves, draws much of its nourish- 
 ment from the air. A cabbage, which has very broad leaves, 
 and a multitude of them, owes its growth more to the air than 
 to the soil. One fact is certain, that a cabbage cut and hung 
 up in a damp, place, preserves its verdure longer than other 
 plants. At the same time, a seed is that part of a plant 
 which requires the most nourishment ; and for that nourish- 
 ment a culmiferous plant must be indebted entirely to the soil. 
 A leguminous crop, on the contrary, when cut green for food, 
 must be very gentle to the ground. Pease and beans are legu- 
 minous plants ; but being cultivated for seed, they seem to 
 occupy a middle station : their seed makes them more severe 
 than other leguminous crops cut green : their leaves, which 
 grow till reaping, make them less severe, than a culmiferous 
 plant left to ripen. 
 
 " These plants are distinguished no less remarkably by the 
 following circumstance : — All the seeds of a culmiferous plant 
 ripen at the same time. As soon as they begin to form, the 
 plant becomes stationary, the leaves wither, the roots cease to 
 push, and the plant, when cut down, is blanched and sapless. 
 The seeds of a leguminous plant are formed successively : 
 flowers and fruit appear at the same time in different parts of 
 the plant. This plant accordingly is continually growing, and 
 pushing its roots. Hence the value of bean or pease straw 
 
23S NOTES ON MARCH* 
 
 above that of wheat or oats : the latter is withered and dry 
 when the crop is cut ; the former green and succulent. The 
 difference, therefore, with respect to the soil, between a cul- 
 miferous and leguminous crop, is great. The latter growing 
 till cut down, keeps the ground in constant motion, and leaves 
 it to the plough loose and mellow. The former gives over 
 growing long before reaping, and the ground, by want of 
 motion, turns compact and hard. Nor is this all. Dew fall- 
 ing on a culmiferous crop, after the ground begins to harden, 
 rests on the surface, and is sucked up by the next sun. Dew 
 that falls on a leguminous crop is shaded from the sun by the 
 broad leaves, and sinks at leisure into the ground. The 
 ground, accordingly, after a culmiferous crop, is not only hard, 
 but dry ; after a leguminous crop, it is not only loose, but soft 
 and unctuous." 
 
 " Euibous-rooted plants are, above all, successful in divid- 
 ing and pulverizing the soil. Potatoe-roots grow six, eight, or 
 ten inches under the surface ; and, by their size and number, 
 they divide and pulverize the soil better than can be done by 
 the plough ; consequently, whatever be the natural colour of 
 the soil, it is black when a potatoe-crop is taken up. The po- 
 tatoe, however, with respect to its quality of dividing the 
 soil, must yield to a carrot or parsnip ; which ^are large roots, 
 and pierce often to the depth of eighteen inches. Tfcie turnip, 
 by its tap-root, divides the soil more than can be done by a 
 fibrous-rooted plant ; but as its bulbous root grows mostly 
 above ground, it divides the soil less than the potatoe, the 
 carrot, or' the parsnip. Red clover, in that respect, may be 
 put in the same class with turnip 
 
NOTES ON HARCH. 239 
 
 Note II. 
 
 Then pare the turf, 
 
 And lay it loosely up, in hollow heaps, 
 Triangular ■; next kindle each, till far 
 The smoky clouds, bY. P. 56, 
 
 " The practice of burning the surface, and applying the 
 -ashes as manure to the soil that remains, has been long pre- 
 valent in Britain ; and though it has been condemned, 
 nay reprobated, by many chemical writers, and prohibited 
 in numerous instances by proprietors, yet, by professional 
 people, who judged upon the utility of the practice ac- 
 cording to the nature and consequences of the after-effects, it 
 has, almost in every case, been supported, and considered as 
 the most advantageous way of bringing in and improving all 
 soils, where the surface carried a coarse sward, and was com- 
 posed of peat-earth, or other inactive substances. The burn- 
 ing of this surface has been viewed as the best way of bring- 
 ing such soils into action ; the ashes, furnished by the burning, 
 serving as a stimulant to raise up their dormant powers, there- 
 by rendering them fertile and productive in a superior degree 
 than otherwise could possibly be accomplished. 
 
 " These have been the sentiments of husbandmen for many 
 generations, and are not to be overturned by the force of ab- 
 stract reasoning, however plausibly and forcibly urged. Were 
 a field to be burned, and the ashes thereby produced to be 
 /removed to another, the objections of chemists would be well 
 
'210 ".- TES ON FEBRUARY, 
 
 founded ; but so long as these ashes are spread upon the sur- 
 face, and an effect produced upon the remainder of the soil 
 and subsoil, equal, if not superior, to that occasioned by calca- 
 reous manure, no evil is to be dreaded. The soil, in place of 
 being thinned by the burning, is, in fact, thickened ; because 
 a portion of the subsoil is impregnated and brought into action^ 
 whereby the staple is deepened, and its productive powers 
 increased. It must be remarked, however, that as the effects 
 of burnt ashes, though instantaneous, are not of long duration, 
 a dressing of dung, in the third year, becomes highly neces- 
 sary ; after which, land so treated should be restored to grass. 
 The great object to be attended to, when stimulants are em- 
 ployed, is to use gentle and lenient cropping afterwards ; 
 otherwise, what with justice might have been considered as a 
 meritorious improvement, may turn out to deserve a contrary 
 character."— Mr Brown of Markle, Editor of the Farmer's. 
 Magazine. Fid Edinb. Encycl. art. Agriculture, sect. yi. 
 
 Note III. 
 
 And what more fitting form at once to hold 
 
 The kindled fuel, and apply the heat, 
 
 Than one well known, — the rolling cylinder. — P. 58, 
 
 I am convinced that the benefit derived from paring and*' 
 burning, or from the combustion of substances, such as straw, 
 brought and laid upon the surface, does not consist merely in 
 •the conversion of the substances so burnt into manures, but 
 consists partly in the heat imparted to the soil Where the 
 
fcTOTES ON MARCH. 211 
 
 operation of paring and burning cannot be performed, as in 
 lands already under tillage, a very great degree of heat may 
 be applied in the manner which I have attempted to point out. 
 An iron cylinder of two feet and a half diameter would hold 
 a cart of coals. It might be so divided into compartments, 
 that the coals would not be broken down by shifting round. 
 A number of holes in the sides (not in the circumference) 
 would be sufficient for supplying the iire with air ; and these 
 holes might be so contrived, that any number of them might 
 be shut or opened, so as to diminish or increase the violence 
 of the combustion. A high degree of heat would not answer, 
 as the iron, if red hof^ would bend. The iron would need to 
 be kept at that degree of heat which is between blue and red, 
 but more on the blue. Cast iron, on coming in contact with 
 water, would be apt to crack, and hammered iron would be 
 expensive. I should think that a cast-iron cylinder, sheathed, 
 in hammered iron, would do. This may be a visionary pro- 
 ject, and may perhaps subject me to ridicule. I state it with 
 no degree of confidence ; I merely throw it out as perhaps not 
 unworthy of trial by those who have opportunities, and who 
 can afford the expence of a full and fair experiment. To such 
 as are disposed to treat with ridicule him who ventures to sug- 
 gest what he conjectures may possibly be of use, I would ob- 
 serve, that such treatment, though in a great proportion of 
 cases, as probably in this, it may be fitly enough applied, can- 
 not tend to the advancement of science, which, it is well 
 known, has sometimes derived improvement from the acci- 
 dental discoveries and observations of persons equally ignorant 
 on chemical subjects, as I, with regret, confess myself to be. 
 Q 
 
212 NOTES ON MARCH, 
 
 Note IV. 
 
 And downy flowers on river-loving palms* P. 60* 
 
 Our excellent Scottish lexicographer, Dr Jamieson, though 
 he generally unites accuracy with ingenuity in his explanatory 
 and etymological disquisitions, has fallen into a mistake with 
 respect to the meaning of the word palm. Under the article 
 saagh (willow), he notices the word palms, as signifying the 
 flowers of the willow. Now the word, as used in Scotland, 
 signifies the tree itself. This use of the word is certainly an 
 Instance of perversion of terms ; and I account for it in this 
 way : — The willow is one of the trees whose leaves and flowers 
 appear very early in the spring. In times of Popery, when the 
 different parts of our Saviour's history were made the subject 
 of processions and shows, the circumstances attending his final 
 entry into Jerusalem were not forgotten ; and, among other 
 circumstances, that of the people going out to meet him 
 with branches of palm-trees (John, ch. xiii. ver. 13.) made 
 part of the ceremony observed on the sixth Sunday after 
 Easter, called Palm-Sunday ; but as palm-trees are not to be 
 had in our northern regions, the tree earliest in leaf and flower 
 was chosen as a substitute. The earliest species of the willow 
 was naturally chosen, and hence it got the name of the palm- 
 tree. In some parts of Scotland, Palm-Sunday has been con- 
 verted into Palm-Saturday, when the boys still make proces* 
 ^ior.s with branches of palm-trees* 
 
NOTES ON KA1CX. 243 
 
 Note V.- 
 
 Therefore by day their gateway-porch enlarge*- ' 
 But still at e-ve let it be closed secure. — P. 60. 
 
 " In spring I generally shut up the doors of my hives every 
 evening, as soon as the bees are all got in, and open them 
 again next morning ; and I even do this for whole days during' 
 that season, when the cold is severe ; as cold wind blowing in 
 at their entries are extremely prejudicial to them, and ought 
 therefore to be prevented with all possible care. By tins 
 simple practice, the bees are kept warm and healthy, which 
 is greatly beneficial to them in breeding. But in following 
 this plan, great caution must be observed, that the bees have 
 no other vent to get out at, as the consequences would be 
 fatal." 
 
 ****** 
 
 , " In spring, as the bees gradually increase in numbers, 
 their entry should be gradually widened, lest they be impeded 
 in their labours ; but this should only be done in proportion to 
 the number of bees in a hive. During March and April, they 
 should be very little, as warmness is health to bees, and fur- 
 thers their hatching greatly." 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 " The method of enlarging or straitening the entries of 
 hives is quite simple. Pieces of wood, all of one size out- 
 wardly, but with holes cut in the under part of them, of the 
 •various dimensions above described, might be made and kept 
 
24-ii NOTES ON MARCH. 
 
 ready at all times, to be exchanged with each other, according 
 as the season requires, or the bee-master wishes to widen or 
 , to straiten his hives ; but indeed a little plaster lime will 
 straiten or widen an entry in spring and summer, with very 
 little trouble." — Bonner on Bees. 
 
 To those who cultivate bees, whether for amusement or 
 profit, I would recommend this book, as containing, amid 
 some strange but amiable enthusiasm, a great portion of ac- 
 curate observation and just remark, 
 
 Note VI. 
 
 "And when the welkin's warm, 
 
 Nor sudden frost, nor ram will harm your fields, — P. 62, 
 
 The warmth of the lower region of the air is sometimes 
 very deceitful. Often when a westerly wind blows below, in 
 the higher regions a contrary current prevails. It is a common 
 saying among country people, that when the frost taks the lift, 
 there will be bad weather. The lift signifies the firmament, 
 or higher parts of the atmosphere. Whenever those parts are 
 in a cold state, whether from the wind blowing from a cold 
 quarter, or from any other cause, the flight of the J~ark is, 
 comparatively speaking, low ; and even its notes are less full 
 and melodious. 
 
NOTES ON APRIL. 
 
 Xote I. 
 
 Soon as the earliest swallow skims the mcacl y 
 The barley sowing is by some begun. — P. 67. 
 
 " Magna fides avium est ; experiamur aves." 
 
 Ov. Fast. lib. iv. 814. 
 
 In choosing the proper times for performing the different 
 operations of husbandry, the farmer's plans ought not to be 
 regulated by the present appearances of the weather ; neither 
 ought they to be regulated by the progress of vegetation in 
 wild plants or trees ; for they in general afford no more than 
 evidence of what, on the whole, the state of the season has 
 hitherto been. On the other hand, the birds of passage un- 
 doubtedly possess an instinctive forecast of what is to be tjie 
 state of the weather. 
 
 The connection, indeed, between the appearance of certain 
 birds, and, the future state of the weather, is so striking, that 
 the ancients seem to have derived from these natural prognos- 
 tications, the whole system on which their auspices pretended 
 
2*0 SiOTES ON APRIL, 
 
 to foretell even such events, as could have had no dependance 
 on the appearances of Nature. The superior foresight (so to 
 speak) of birds is easily accounted for. A swallow, for in- 
 stance, is probably able to traverse Europe in four-and-twenty 
 hours, consequently its determinations to begin or to continue 
 its migrations may easily be the result of observations on the 
 state of the atmosphere, made not in this or that particular 
 district, but in a compass of several hundreds of miles. The 
 appearance, then, of birds of passage, may be considered as 
 affording a surer prognostic of the future state of the weather, 
 than the state of vegetation in plants and trees possibly can ; 
 inasmuch as the range of observation and feeling of birds is 
 extensive, their perceptions exceedingly acute, and their very 
 existence dependent upon the state of the season in those 
 countries to which, at particular times, they resort. 
 
 Note II. 
 
 Should in saline infusion drench the seed. — P. 67* 
 
 The practice of steeping seed in different kinds of pickle is 
 as old as the days of Virgil ; 
 
 " Semina vide equid'em multos medicare serentes, 
 £t nitro prius et nigra perfundere amurca." 
 
 Geo?: i. 1. 132. 
 
 Though indeed, from the line that immediately follows these 
 two, it would seem that Virgil had no great faith in such- 
 preparations, 
 
 " Crandior ut foetus siliquis fallaci&us esset." 
 
2JOTES ON .APRIL. 2i1 
 
 Modern experience, however, has proved, beyond a doubt, 
 that the steeping of seed in water strongly impregnated with 
 salt, is often of very great advantage. 
 
 " The last spring (1783) being remarkably dry, I soaked 
 my seed-barley in the black water taken from a reservoir, 
 which constantly receives the draining of my dungheap and 
 stables. As the light corn floated on the top, I skimmed it 
 off, and let the rest stand 24 hours. On taking it from the 
 water, I mixed the seed-grain with a sufficient quantity of 
 sifted wood-ashes, to make it spread regularly, and sowed 
 three fields with it. I began sowing the 16th, and finished 
 the 23d of April. The produce was 60 bushels per acre of 
 good -clean barley, without any small or green corn, or weeds 
 at harvest. No person in this country had better grain." 
 
 " I sowed also several other fields with the same seed dry. 
 and without any preparation ; but the crop, like those of my 
 Reighbours, was very poor ; not more than 20 bushels per acre, 
 and much mixed with green corn and weeds when harvested. 
 I also sowed some of the seed dry on one ridge in each of my 
 former fields, but the produce was very poor in comparison of 
 the other parts of the field.". — A Correspondent of the Bath 
 Society, vuL Forsyth, vol. L p. 502, 
 
£43 NOTES ON APRIL, 
 
 Note III. 
 
 And then, with cautious hand, the hedges lop, 
 Broad at the bottom, tspering by degrees. — P. 67. 
 
 The following observations by Lord Karnes, on the proper 
 method of rearing hawthorn-hedges, though very important, 
 are not sufficiently attended to : 
 
 " We are now arrived at the most important article of all, 
 that of training up a thorn-hedge after it is planted. The or- 
 dinary method is, to cut off the top and shorten the lateral 
 branches, in order to make it thick and bushy. To the same 
 end, the young thorns, after standing six or seven years, are 
 sometimes cut over within two or three inches of the ground, 
 which multiplies the stems, and makes the hedge still thicken 
 This form of a hedge catches the eye : by its thickness it is 
 formidable to cattle, but its weakness is discovered when bare 
 of leaves, and cattle break through every where without ob- 
 struction. 
 
 " I have the experience of three hedges trained for twelve 
 years, as follows : — The first has been annually pruned, top 
 and sides. The sides of the second have been pruned, but the 
 top left entire. The third was allowed to grow without 
 any pruning. The first is at present about four feet broad, 
 and thick from top to bottom ; but weak in its stems, and 
 unable to resist any horned beast. The second is strong in its 
 . and close from top to bottom. The third is also strong 
 
NOTES ON APRIL. 249 
 
 in its stems, but, for two feet up, bare of lateral branches, 
 which have been destroyed by the overshadowing of those 
 above, depriving them both of rain and air. That the second 
 is the best method, is ascertained by experience ; and that it 
 ought to be so, will be evident, if we can trust to analogy. 
 In the natural growth of a tree, its trunk is proportioned to 
 its height : lop off the head, it spreads laterally, and becomes 
 strong, without rising in height or swelling in the trunk." 
 
 Another able writer observes, that " The great art of pre- 
 serving hedges fencible, after they are raised, consists in keep- 
 ing them three or four times broader at the bottom than at 
 the top. By this means, every part has the full advantage of 
 the sun, air, and rain; it grows equally thick throughout, 
 and particularly below, where it is most necessary. But when 
 a hedge is trained broader at top, or even perpendicular, that 
 half of it next the surface is under the drip of the rest; and, 
 deprived of sun and rain, it sickens ; produces few T or no young 
 shoots ; the sap' runs all to the top of the hedge ; it gets quite 
 bare below ; and soon becomes unfit for a fence. Every ac- 
 curate observer will allow^ that this is the case, more or less, 
 in the greater part of what are generally considered as the 
 best kept hedges, such as those surrounding market-gardens in 
 the neighbourhood of towns, which, though they are annually 
 cleaned and shorn with great care, are commonly so naked 
 below, as to admit hares, dogs, swine, &c. — Loudon's Obser- 
 vations, edit. 1801, p. l\3. 
 
^259 NOTES ON APRIL, 
 
 Note IV. 
 
 Sojiis husbandinen, as if by rage impelled^ 
 With unrelenting hatchets, level low 
 Each full-grown hedge.— P. 68. 
 
 The mania of massacring hedges, not old decayed hedges* 
 but such as are still in their prime, is quite unaccountable. 
 Even when hedges are old, the practice of hewing them down 
 within a foot or less of the ground is quite absurd. The 
 stumps thus left, it will be observed, never grow a bit higher ; 
 so that they do not present any thing like an interim fence ; 
 and the twigs that shoot from them, unless defended with all 
 the care that a young hedge requires, are liable to be de- 
 stroyed by cattle passing over and through them. Cutting 
 over at the distance of three feet from the ground, answers 
 the purpose of obtaining a crop of new shoots equally well, 
 while the old stems, with the aid of a stake put in here and 
 there, continue to be a useful fence. Besides, cutting a thern 
 very near the root often destroys, and always greatly impairs, 
 the vegetative powers of the stump. 
 
 The practice of plashing, though it does not deprive the 
 field of an interim fence, is condemned by Lord Kames in 
 these words : " Plashing an old hedge, an ordinary practice 
 in England, makes indeed a good interim fence ; but at the 
 long run is destructive to the hedge : and accordingly, there 
 is scarcely to be met with a complete good hedge, where 
 plashing has been long practised. A cat is said, among thf 
 
NOTES ON APRIL 251 
 
 vulgar, to have nine lives ; is it their opinion, that a thorn, 
 
 like a cat, may be cut and slashed at will, without suffering 
 hy it.?" 
 
 Note V. 
 
 The genius of the thorn is misconceived^ bV.— P. 69. 
 
 Hawthorns, and all the thorny tribes which, in a state of 
 Mature, run into thickets, thrive the better for being crowded. 
 In a crowded state, that is, in the state of a thicket, they will 
 not indeed assume the appearance of trees, as single hawthorns 
 do, but they will possess health and vigour as shrubs. They 
 will not shoot into tall sickly poles, as trees properly so called 
 do, when they are crowded together. It is, therefore, quite 
 absurd to plant thorns like turnips or potatoes, in drills, by 
 way of making them healthy. It is, no doubt, easier to weed 
 a hedge, consisting of a single regular row of plants, than 
 one consisting of thorns three or four deep. But, in truth, 
 there would be no difficulty in weeding young thorns, though 
 they formed even a broad belt. They should never be weeded 
 with any other instrument than the hand ; for the bark (a 
 most essential part in the structure of a plant) is always more 
 or less wounded by the use of iron weeders. After being 
 weeded by the hand for a year or two, they require no aid to 
 enable them to keep their ground against the growth of weeds. 
 But weeding at all would be quite unnecessary, if the plan which 
 I suggest were to be adopted. Protection for two or three years 
 against the assaults of cattle, would be quite sufficient to en* 
 
2b'2 NOTES ON APRIL. 
 
 sure the growth of an impenetrable fence. The surface of 
 the little mounds on which our single-row hedges are reared, 
 is seldom less than five or six feet. I do not mean that such 
 mounds are generally five or six feet in breadth, but merely 
 that, measuring from the ditch up the slope over, and down 
 to the ground on the other side, there is generally a surface 
 of the extent at least which I have mentioned. Now, though 
 in estimating the space which, in such cases, may be filled 
 with plants that grow, like the hawthorn, upright, the base 
 of the ground must be the rule, .yet when the plantable space 
 (so to speak) is estimated, partly in reference to shrubs that 
 creep or climb, the superficial extent of the mound is so far 
 the rule for estimating the number of plants which the 
 space will hold, I do then, with some confidence, say, that on 
 such a space of five or six feet, by mixing several kinds of the 
 thorny shrubs together, adding perhaps some willows and 
 honeysuckles, fences of the most sufficient and durable, as 
 well as beautiful kind, might be reared without any other 
 trouble than that of keeping them from encroaching beyond 
 their prescribed limits. Brambles and briers, though they are 
 short-lived plants, are every year pushing out fresh shoots ; 
 and in this way are excellently fitted for filling up the lower 
 parts of fences, where the under branches of the more perma- 
 nent thorns have decayed. They are useful in another re- 
 spect ; for though they are weaker than either the white or 
 black thorn, yet, from the hooked shape of their prickles, they 
 form a more formidable obstacle to sheep. Nor can the injury 
 h they might do to the wool be objected to, since it is 
 only imperfect fences, that is, such as the sheep know by ex- 
 perience they can force a way through, that they ever attempt 
 
KOTES ON APRIL. 253 
 
 to break. The social nature of the hawthorn is proved by 
 another circumstance, besides its thriving best in thickets, — 
 namely, that even the close embrace of ivy does it no injury. 
 The finest hawthorn-trees that I have seen were encircled with' 
 that beautiful evergreen. I do not think that it is even much 
 injured by trees overspreading it, for it certainly grows with 
 great luxuriance in woods. 
 
 Note VI. 
 
 There place your foot, let not a twig encroach — P. 71« 
 
 I, of course, limit this observation to cases where ornament 
 is only a secondary consideration. A certain irregularity and 
 wildness of appearance in a hedge is more pleasing than a 
 uniform trimness. At the same time, I am far from approving 
 of that fastidious attachment to systematic irregularity, that 
 would 'exclude, from all the productions of Nature, every 
 trace of the human hand, 
 
 Note VII. 
 
 -With Highland flings 
 
 Not void of grace. P. 72. 
 
 The superiority of Highland dancing, as existing in the 
 Highlands, is admirably described by Mrs Grant ; 
 
£M NOTES ON APRIL.. 
 
 "" Then native music wakes in sprightly strains,. 
 Which gay- according motion best explains : 
 Fastidious Elegance, in scornful guise, 
 Perhaps th' unpolished measure may despise ; 
 But here, where infants lisp in tuneful lays, 
 And melody her untaught charms displays ; 
 - The dancers bound with wild peculiar grace, 
 And sound through all its raptured mazes trace ; 
 Nor awkward step, nor rude ungainly mien, 
 Through all the glad assemblage can be seen : 
 But with decorous air, and sprightly ease, 
 Even critic taste the agile dancers please., 
 Cameleon Fashion's self, whose varying hue 
 Assumes the likeness of each object new, 
 Returns, to copy Motion's artless grace, 
 Even from the wildest of the mountain race, 
 And, with decisive voice, her votaries calls, 
 To ape, with air constrained, the rural balls ! 
 The nymph that wont to trace the source of Tay v 
 Or lead the sprightly dance by rapid Spsy, 
 With conscious triumph, smiles aside to see, 
 This ' faint reflection of the rural glee ;' 
 Short pleasure languid imitation feels, 
 While polished courtiers pant in active reels." 
 
 The Highlanders, p. 55, 1st editor 
 
NOTES ON APBIL. 253 
 
 Note VIII. 
 
 A softened tone, and slower measure flows, 
 
 Sweet from the strings, and stills the boisterous joy, ->P. 7 So 
 
 In Ramsay's time, it seems to have been common for fiddlers 
 to accompany the instrument with the voice. 
 
 " In sonnet slee the man I sing, 
 His rare eng'yne in rhyme shall ring,. 
 Wha slaid the stick out o'er the string 
 
 Wi' sic an art ; 
 Wha sang sae sweetly to the spring, 
 
 An' raised the heart." 
 
 Elegy on Patie Birnie*. 
 
NOTES ON MAY. 
 
 Note I, 
 
 Even love itself, that in the peasant's heart- 
 Was wont to glow nvith pure and constant flame, bV.--P. 82, 
 
 " In appreciating the happiness and virtue of a community, 
 there is perhaps no single criterion on which so much depen- 
 dence may be placed, as the state of the intercourse betwixt 
 the sexes. Where this displays ardour of attachment, accom- 
 panied by purity of conduct, the character and the influence 
 of women rise in society, our imperfect nature mounts in the 
 scale of moral excellence; and, from the source of this single 
 affection, a stream of felicity descends, which branches into a 
 thousand rivulets, that enrich and adorn the field of life. 
 Where the attachment between the sexes sinks into an appe- 
 tite, the heritage of our species is comparatively poor, and 
 man approaches the condition of the brutes that perish' 9 
 
 Remarks on the Character and Condition of the 
 Scottish Peasantry, by Dr Currie. 
 
NOTES ON MAY, 257 
 
 The ardour of attachment and purity of conduct here spoken 
 of, are in part ascribed by Dr Currie to the influence of the 
 national music and poetry. ' 
 
 " Their present influence on the character of the nation is, 
 however, great and striking. To them we must attribute, in 
 a great measure, the romantic passion which so often charac- 
 terises the attachments of the humblest of the people of Scot- 
 land, to a degree that, if we mistake not, is seldom found in 
 the same rank of society in other countries. The pictures of 
 love and happiness exhibited in their rural songs, are early 
 impressed on the mind of the peasant, and are rendered more 
 attractive from the music with which they are united. They 
 associate themselves with his own youthful emotions ; they 
 elevate the object as well as the nature of his attachment ; 
 and give to the impressions of sense, the beautiful colours of 
 imagination. Hence, in the course of his passion, a Scottish 
 peasant often exerts a spirit of adventure, of which a Spanish 
 cavalier need not be ashamed. After the labours of the day 
 are over, he sets out for the habitation of his mistress, perhaps 
 at many miles distance, regardless of the length or dreariness 
 of the way. He approaches her in secrecy, under the dis- 
 guise of night. A signal at the door or window, perhaps 
 agreed on, and understood by none but her, gives information 
 of his arrival ; and sometimes it is repeated again and again, 
 before the capricious fair one will obey the summons. But if 
 she favours his addresses, she escapes unobserved, and receives 
 the vows of her lover under the gloom of twilight, or the 
 deeper shade of night. Interviews of this kind are the sub- 
 It 
 
258 tfOTES ON MAY. 
 
 jects of many of the Scottish songs, some of the most beautiful 
 of which Burns has imitated or improved." — Remarks, bV. by 
 Dr Currie. 
 
 Note IL 
 
 In moorland farms, the season now invites 
 Him, who would change the heath-flower for the pea f 
 To draw his drains both deep and broad, with sides 
 Of easy slope. P. 83. 
 
 The mode of converting peat-moss into fertile fields, as 
 .practised by Mr Smith of Swinridge-moor, who led the way 
 in this species of improvement, or at least first communicated 
 it to the public, is described by Mr Headrick, in a communi- 
 cation to the Board of Agriculture. The following are ex. 
 tracts from that communication : 
 
 " When they enter upon the improvement of a moss in its 
 natural state, the first thing to be done is, to mark and cut 
 main or master drains, eight feet in width, by four and a half 
 in depth, and declining to two and a half at bottom ; these 
 cost a shilling per fall of Scots ells. In some instances, it will 
 be found necessary to cut those drains much deeper, conse- 
 quently at a greater expence. These drains, almost in every 
 instance, can be, and are so conducted, as to divide the field into 
 regular and proper inclosures. They always make it a rule to 
 finish off as much of a drain as they have broken up, before they 
 leave it at night ; because if a part is left dug, suppose half- 
 
NOTES ON MAY. 259 
 
 way, the oozing of water from the sides would render the 
 bottom so soft, that they could neither stand upon it, nor lift 
 it with the spade. When the moss is so very soft, that the 
 pressure of what is thrown out of the drain may cause its sides 
 to fall in again, they throw the clods from the drain a consi- 
 derable way back, and sometimes have a man to throw them 
 still further back, by a spade or the hand; for this reason, 
 too, they always throw the stuff taken from a drain as equally 
 as possible on each side of it. In digging the drains, the 
 workmen stand upon small boards, to prevent them from sink- 
 ing, and move them forward as the work advances. 
 
 " When the moss lies in a hollow, with only one outlet, it 
 is necessary to lead up a drain, so as to let the water pass this 
 outlet, and then conduct it along the lowest or wettest part 
 of the moss : this middle drain is afterwards sloped, and the 
 stuff thrown back into the hollows that may occur ; upon it 
 the ridges are made to terminate on each side, while a ring- 
 drain, serving the purpose of a fence, is thrown round the 
 moss, at the line where the rising ground commences. This 
 can generally be so managed, as to divide the moss into a 
 square field, leaving straight lines for the sides of the conti- 
 guous fields. The ring-drain intercepts the surface-water from 
 the higher grounds, and conducts it into the lower part of the 
 outlet, while the sloped drain in the centre receives and dis- 
 charges all the water that falls upon the moss." 
 
 ****** 
 
 11 The drains being thus completed, they mark out the 
 ridges, either with a long string, or with three poles set in a 
 line. Mr Smith has tried several breadths of ridges, but now 
 gives a decided preference to those that are seven yards hi 
 
260 NOTES ON .MAY, 
 
 breadth. The ridges are formed with the spade in the follow- 
 ing manner : In the centre of each intended ridge, a space of 
 about two feet is allowed to remain untouched ; on each side 
 of that space a furrow is opened, which is turned over so as 
 completely to cover that space, like what is called 'veering or 
 feering of a gathered ridge ; the work, thus begun, is conti- 
 nued by cutting furrows with the spade, and turning them 
 over from end to end of the ridge on each side, until they ar- 
 rive at the division-furrows. The breadth of the slices thus 
 cut may be about 12 inches, and each piece is made as long as 
 it may suit to turn over. The ridge, when finished, has the 
 appearance of having been done with a plough. The division- 
 furrow is tw r o feet in breadth, which, if necessary to draw off 
 -superfluous water, is partly cut and thrown upon the sides, or 
 into hollows in the ridges on each side. The depth of the 
 divisions-furrows is regulated by circumstances, so as not to lay 
 the ridges at first too dry, but at the same time to bleed, as it 
 were, the moss, and conduct the superfluous water into the 
 master drains. 
 
 " The next operation is to top-dress the ridges with lime, 
 The sooner this is done after the ridges are formed, the better. 
 When the moss appears dry, experienced farmers throw on the 
 Jime, but do not clean out the division-furrows until the en- 
 suing winter. When it is soaked in water, they clean the 
 division-furrows as soon as the lime is ready, and after the 
 water has' run off, apply the lime immediately. It is of great 
 importance to have the lime applied while the moss is stilV 
 moist, and the lime in as caustic a state as possible." 
 
SsOTES ON MAY. 261 
 
 Note III. 
 
 -But man j 
 
 When forced his dwelling-place to leave, the fields 
 Which he and his forefathers ploughed. — P. 85. 
 
 These who consider the soil in no other light than as a com- 
 modity which may be manufactured into corn or cattle, u e. 
 into pounds, shillings, and pence, affect to sneer at the very 
 statement of the question, whether the system of large or 
 small farms is preferable. I am well aware, that any legisla- 
 tive interference, either with trade or agriculture, is apt to do 
 more harm than good. At the same time, I can never see the 
 propriety of an undeviating application of the laisse% faire 
 principle. That principle is only a good one when it is ob- 
 served throughout. On such a subject as this, however, my 
 judgment will be of little weight. I will, therefore, refer to 
 the opinion of a man who was no visionary. His ideas appear 
 to me to be so just, and to have so obvious a tendency to pro= 
 mote the comfort and happiness of the people, that I think 
 they cannot be too often repeated and insisted on. 
 
 " I proceed to an interesting article, which is, to compare 
 great and small farms in point of utility. I call a small farm 
 what employs but a single plough ; and a smaller there ought 
 not to be. A middling farm is what requires, two ploughs ; 
 and whatever requires a greater number, I call a great farm. 
 These different farms I shall consider with respect to the land- 
 
•262 NOTES ON MAY. 
 
 lord, with respect to the tenant, and with respect^ to the 
 public. 
 
 " With respect to the landlord, there are advantages and 
 disadvantages that tend to balance each other. Small farms 
 draw the greatest number of candidates ; which cannot fail 
 to raise the rents. On the other hand, small farms occasion a 
 great expence for houses ; and in a country where building 
 materials are costly, large farms may appear to be the interest 
 of the landlord. 
 
 " With respect to tenants, a farm as large as can be accu- 
 rately managed, is undoubtedly the interest of a tenant, pro- 
 vided he have a fund for stocking the farm sufficiently. But 
 this is really saying no more, but that it is beneficial to have a 
 large fund. The proper question is, Whether, with respect to 
 farmers in general, it is not a convenience to have the choice 
 of small or great farms, according to their stock ? In that 
 view, small farms are undoubtedly advantageous to those who 
 want to be farmers ; because, in Scotland at least, the number 
 is much greater of those who can stock a small farm, than of 
 those who can go farther. It may possibly be objected, that 
 there is an inconvenience in a small farm, where two horses 
 only are necessary for a plough, in respect that two horses 
 make but a slow progress in carrying corn or dung. To this 
 objection there is a ready answer : Two horses in two single 
 carts will make as much expedition in carrying out the dung, 
 or carrying in the corn of a small farm, as double that number 
 will make in a middling farm, where the dung and corn are 
 double in quantity. I say further, that if two horses be not 
 sufficient, the defect may be readily supplied by two draught 
 oxen, which add very little to the expence of the farm. These* 
 
NOTES ON MAY. 263 
 
 at four years of age, may be purchased for 10 1. They will 
 give, at seven, 151. ; and this profit, with no more work than 
 sufficient to give them a stomach, will balance their summer 
 food of green clover. Their winter food of straw cannot enter 
 into the computation, being the very best way of converting 
 straw into dung. Here there is a great convenience. Where 
 a field, by drought or otherwise, is rendered too stiff for a 
 pair, the oxen may be yoked in the plough with the horses. 
 In ground less stiff, the farmer has a choice of two oxen and 
 a horse, of two horses alone, or of two oxen. Where plough* 
 ing happens to be retarded by bad weather, two ploughs may 
 be employed, which is a signal convenience. Ploughing, also. 
 and harrowing, may go on at the same time ; and the farmer 
 has it always in his power to yoke two double carts. Even m 
 carse-soil this plan will answer ; as there is seldom occasion to 
 employ the oxen but where the ground is sufficiently dry fur 
 them. 
 
 " With respect to the public, small farms are undoubtedly 
 the most advantageous, The number of servants, it is true. 
 must be in proportion to the size of the farm ; but in a mid- 
 dling farm there is but one tenant ; whereas in two small 
 farms of no greater extent, there are two. And the difference 
 is still greater in large farms. This is a capital circumstance. 
 The children of tenants are taught to read and write ; and, 
 in general, are better educated than children of day-labourer?, 
 which qualifies them better for being artists and manufac- 
 turers. They are also commonly more numerous, being better 
 nourished during non-age, and better preserved from diseases. 
 Small farms, accordingly, are net only favourable to popula.- 
 turn, but to the most useful population. I would not there- 
 
2t5d N-OTiSS ON MAY. 
 
 fore indulge willingly any farm beyond a middle size. And.. 
 to check those of a large size, I am clear for a tax of 3l. or 
 4 1. yearly upon every farm that requires three ploughs ; and 
 so on, according to the number. I except proprietors, who 
 ought to be encouraged to improve their estates : let- them 
 employ as many ploughs as they find convenient, and not be 
 subjected to any tax. If any undertaker be willing to lay out 
 a large sum of money upon farming, the profit of a long lease 
 will enable him to pay the tax. This tax at the same time 
 may be so contrived, as to answer a valuable purpose, that of 
 exciting farmers to use oxen instead of horses ; which will be 
 done by exempting oxen-ploughs from the tax. And the un- 
 dertaker mentioned will be relieved from the tax altogether, 
 if he employ such ploughs only." 
 
 Lord Kames's Gentleman Farmer* p. 27£, 
 
NOTES' ON JUNE. 
 
 £Tote L 
 
 -Let us be taught 
 
 By them ; by Nature lengthening out our day 
 
 To twice ten hours,— and labour in the cool — P. 94. 
 
 At Midsummer the sun is above the horizon eighteen hours 
 and a half, and there is good day-light an hour and a quarter 
 before sunrise, and as long after sunset. The day may there- 
 fore be said to be 20 hours long at this season. In choosing 
 ten or twelve hours for labour out of these twenty, why, from 
 a habit which suits the cooler seasons of the year, should the 
 Very worst portion of the day be pitched upon ? 
 
NOTES ON JUNE. 
 
 Note II. 
 
 Why, 'twixt the bean-fieW s marshalled ra?iks i is left 
 
 Free space for air and sun; a?id -juhy the spikes 
 
 Of bearded grain -wave equal o'er the plain. P. 96. 
 
 At one time the drill husbandry was often applied even to 
 grain crops, but now it is going into disuse. Indeed, there 
 is an obvious reason for confining this mode of husbandry to 
 those kinds of plants which derive, through the medium of 
 their broad leaves, a very great proportion of t'heir nourish- 
 ment from the atmosphere, or which bear their product on 
 the lower as well as the upper parts of their stems. The 
 leaves of beans are broad, and both they and the blossoms ap- 
 pear a considerable way down the stalk. The free admission, 
 therefore, of the air and of the sun-beams, for the purposes of 
 growth and ripening, is peculiarly necessary to them. The 
 different species of corn, on the other hand, derive, compara- 
 tively speaking, a small portion of their nourishment from the 
 air, and their seed presents itself all at the top of the stalk. 
 It is obvious, therefore, that the broad-cast mode of sowing in- 
 most suitable to them, and experience has proved tl 
 
fciOTES UN JUNE. 
 
 Note III. 
 
 -Some the hoe prefer. 
 
 Which female hands, or, if of lighter make, 
 The childish grasp can wield. P. 97. 
 
 44 It is generally supposed that a weightier crop is produced 
 by the drill than by the broad-cast method ; but, even ad- 
 mitting them equal in this respect, the superiority as a fallow- 
 crop must be allowed, because, by the repeated horse-hoeings 
 or ploughings in the intervals, and hand-hoeing in the rows, 
 you have it in your power to extirpate the whole race of ani- 
 mal weeds, and so much surface being exposed through the 
 winter, makes a higher preparation for any succeeding crop. 
 Another advantage is, the facility with which they are hoed ; 
 as a girl or boy of nine years old can hoe them with the 
 greatest ease, and indeed generally better than experienced 
 broad-cast hoers ; because these are more apt to take too many 
 away, and leave them over-thin in the rows, while the young 
 ones, from the apprehension of hoeing them too thin, will 
 leave the plants at any distance you fix upon." 
 
 Young's Farmer's Calendar, p. 331. 
 
 The use of the plough as well as of the hoe, in drill-hus- 
 bandry, is as old as the days of Virgil, They seem, how- 
 ever, to have been employed chiefly in the cultivation of the 
 vine : 
 
26S NOTES ON JUNE. 
 
 " Seminibus positis, superest deducere terram 
 Ssepius ad capita, et duros jactare bidentes ; 
 Aut presso exercere solum sub vomere, et ipsa 
 Flectere luctantes inter vineta juvencos : 
 
 Geor. ii. 1. 354. 
 
 ft Be mindful when thou hast entombed the shoot, 
 With store of earth around to feed the root ; 
 With iron teeth of rakes and prongs, to move 
 The crusted earth, and loosen it above. 
 Then exercise thy sturdy steers to plough 
 Betwixt thy vines."——* Dryden. 
 
 Note IV. 
 
 If o'er your leas the yellow ragwort spread 
 A gaudy forest. P. 97. 
 
 In many parts of Scotland, the pasture-fields are covered 
 with large, and consequently exhausting, crops of these 
 weeds, which are allowed to blossom, ripen, and disperse 
 their down-winged seed. I believe they are triennial plants, 
 so that cutting them down for three years will extirpate 
 them. It is hardly necessary to say, that cutting them down 
 in time would serve the double purpose of freeing the ground 
 from a nuisance,, and of making a valuable addition to the 
 dunghill. 
 
NOTES ON JUNE. . 2f9 
 
 Note V. 
 
 Others again, whatever the grassy crop, 
 If one day's sun they gain, no longer trust 
 The fickle sky, but rear the verdant cock 
 Of size diminutive, i?c. P. 106. 
 
 On the subject of haymaking, the following mode described 
 by Br James Anderson appears from the nature of the thing 
 to be so judicious, and its advantages are pointed out in the 
 course of the description, in a manner so simple and convinc- 
 ing, that it ought to be universally known. 
 
 " Instead (says he) of allowing the hay to lie, as usual in 
 most places, for some days in the swathe, after it is cut, and 
 afterwards alternately putting it up into cocks, and spread- 
 ing it out, and tedding it in the sun, which tends greatly to 
 bleach the hay, exhales its natural juices, and subjects it 
 very much to the danger of getting rain, and thus runs a 
 great risk of being good for little ; I make it a general rule, 
 if possible, never to cut hay but when the grass is quite dry ; 
 and then make the gatherers follow close upon the cutters, 
 putting it up immediately into small cocks, about three feet 
 high each when new put up, and of as small a diameter as 
 they can be made to stand with ; always giving each of them 
 a slight kind of thatching, by drawing a few handfuls of the 
 hay from the bottom of the cock all around, and laying it 
 lightly upon the top with one of the ends hanging down- 
 
270 NOTES ON JUNF. 
 
 wards. This is done with the utmost ease and expedition ; 
 and when it is once in that state, I consider my hay as in a 
 great measure out of danger : for unless a violent wind should 
 arise immediately after the cocks are put up, so as to overturn 
 them, nothing else can hurt the hay ; as I have often expe- 
 rienced that no rain, however violent, ever penetrates into 
 these cocks but for a very little way ; and, if they are dry 
 put up, they never sit together so closely as to heat ; although 
 they acquire, in a day or two, such a degree of firmness, as to 
 be in no danger of being overturned by wind after that time, 
 unless it blows a hurricane." 
 
 " In these cocks I allow the hay to remain, until, upon 
 inspection, I judge that it will keep in pretty large tramp- 
 cocks, (which is usually in one or two weeks, according as 
 the weather is more or less favourable), when two men, each 
 with a long-pronged pitch-fork, lift up one of these small 
 cocks between them with the greatest ease, and carry them 
 one after another to the place where the tramp-cock is to be 
 built : and in this manner they proceed over the field till the 
 whole is finished." Essays on Agriculture, Vol. i. p. 186, 
 
 Note VL 
 
 Beneath whose boughs the royal tent was stretched. — P. 11Q. 
 
 " The king of Scots appointed a general rendezvous of his 
 forces at the Torwood, between Falkirk and Stirling." 
 
 Hailes. 
 
NOTES ©N JUNE, 271 
 
 Note VII. 
 
 He passes by the memorable stone, > P. 110. 
 
 The stone in vrhich Bruce fixed his standard is still to 
 "be seen. 
 
NOTES ON JULY. 
 
 Note I. 
 
 Though rarely prized by husbandmen, whose bound.. 
 
 Embrace a widely-spread domain. — P. 116. 
 
 " Farmers of every rank will find their advantage in keep- 
 ing bee-hives, in proportion to the extent of the flowers that 
 grow upon their farms ; as one single acre planted with tur- 
 nips, mustard, clover, or heath, will feed many hives. Even 
 the meanest cottager, who has but a cottage and a kail-yard, 
 might keep two or three hives, and sow a little mustard and 
 turnips, or plant a few gooseberry bushes, on purpose to feed 
 bees. There is scarce a country village in the kingdom, that 
 might not afford to keep as many bee-hives as there are dwell- 
 ing-houses in it ; nor a tradesman in such a village, who mighs 
 not easily keep as many hives as he has hands employed in 
 business. Even servants might have a few hives kept as their 
 own property, in the gardens of their parents, brothers, or 
 friends. In short, persons of all ranks and degrees, from the 
 king to the cottager, might be profitably employed, or agree- 
 ably amused, by keeping bee-hives," 
 
NOTES ON JULY. 273 
 
 " I am quite certain, and some others have often told me 
 that they were of the same opinion, that the melodious hum- 
 ming of bees, when busy at work, or sporting in the air for 
 their own amusement, will have such an effect upon the ani- 
 mal spirits, that, how r ever chagrined or ruffled the temper of 
 a person might be, before he takes a walk among his bees, he 
 generally does not withdraw till the mind enjoys a perfect 
 calm and inward tranquillity." Bonnar on Bees* 
 
 Note II, 
 
 -The jangling pan 
 
 Essayed in vain to stop the living cloud, — P. 118, 
 
 This practice is very ancient ; 
 
 w Tinnitusque cie, et matris quate cymbala circum.* 5 
 
 Georg. iv. L 63, 
 
 Note III, 
 
 A tempting seat, a blossoming abode*— — P. 119. 
 
 n Obriaque hospitiis teneat frondentibus arbos," 
 
 Georg, ir, 1, 24. 
 
274? NOTES ON JULY, 
 
 Note IV. 
 
 But none of all the flowery tribes affords 
 Supplies so plentiful of honey lymph. P. 121* 
 
 " Whenever a honey dew is found, the bees are so extreme- 
 ly eager to fetch it, that they quit all other work, that their 
 returns may be the quicker and more numerous ; and lest a 
 gloomy change should deprive them of the precious prize. 
 No harvest swain, dreading impending storms, can be more 
 anxious or expeditious in hastening the housing of his crops, 
 than these aerial tribes in this their delightful office ; so much 
 so, that thronging in too great numbers at the door, they 
 jostle and tumble each other down. And smarting woe to 
 those who shall thoughtlessly stand in their way at this im- 
 portant crisis ! Their joy on these occasions is expressed in 
 such incessant and loud notes, as to be heard at a great dis- 
 tance. By these tokens it may be known, that there is a 
 honey dew, without seeing the trees from which they gather 
 it* i. Key. 
 
NOTES ON JULY. 275 
 
 Note V. 
 
 -The light precursors fly, 
 
 Like warping midges on a summer's eve, 
 In reeling dance, bV. P. 121. 
 
 " If the bees, about eleven o'clock a. m. fly about in a 
 reeling manner, making a noise and motion about the front of 
 the hive, all these are signs to put the bee-master on his 
 guard, and to prepare him for the joyful event that is fast ap- 
 proaching, of a young colony within a day or two, or even, 
 perhaps, within an hour or two. But if the bees, after all 
 this, run hastily up and down the outside of the hive, and at 
 last gather together in a cluster upon the stool, he may call 
 his friends together, to behold his increasing store, as he may 
 depend that they will swarm immediately." Bqnnar. 
 
 " Before bees swarm the second or third time, they do not 
 lie out in clusters about the hive, or upon the stool ; but as 
 soon as they are ready, they come off in a body, even in 
 weather that is by no means favourable. The signs, when 
 these after-swarms will come off, are mpre certain than those 
 that precede the first swarming ; for, if the weather be good, 
 one may almost prognosticate the very hour. By listening at 
 night to the sound of a hive, about eight, ten, or twelve days 
 after the first swarm is gone off, that peculiar sound, common- 
 ly called tolling, will be easily distinguished. This sound 
 seems to be the royal proclamation issued by the young prin- 
 
2T« NOTES ON JULY- 
 
 cess, to warn, or rather to invite, her fellow-emigrants to 
 prepare for their intended journey. It sounds, says one, as if 
 the words peep ! peep ! peep ! were rapidly pronounced fifteen 
 or twenty times in half a minute. She then stops, and begins 
 again repeatedly, like a chicken peeping for its mother, when 
 it has lost her." — — Bonnar. 
 
 Note VI. 
 
 — Haste, spread the sheet, and lay 
 
 Two rods of mountain-ash along, l£c. P. 122. 
 
 " As soon as they alight on any thing, that can easily be 
 brought to the ground, such as the small branch of a tree, or 
 a berry-bush, or the like, let a sheet be spread on the ground 
 near the swarm, and two sticks placed upon it, a foot asunder. 
 Then place the swarm upon the sheet, between the sticks, and 
 gently cover it with a hive, resting the edges of the hive upon 
 the sticks, to prevent it from crushing any of the bees ; who 
 will thus have free air, and access to and from the hive, which 
 must be covered with a cloth, to prevent the rays of the sun 
 from scorching the bees, and provoking them to rise and seek 
 out a more comfortable habitation. . If their new lodging 
 pleases them, they will take immediate possession, and fall to 
 work with alacrity." Bonnar. 
 
NOTES ON JULY. 277 
 
 Note VII. 
 
 -Closely they entomb 
 
 In catacomb ', as in his pristine shell. P. 123. 
 
 I never witnessed this circumstance myself. I state it on 
 the authority of a lady, whose veracity is as unquestionable as 
 her genius. 
 
 Note VIII.. 
 
 When Summer's blow of flowers begins to fade, 
 Some to the moorlands bear their hives, to cull 
 The treasures of the heat Jibe IL P. 123. 
 
 " About Lammas, those who live in situations where the 
 vegetation is early over, especially if possessed of a large num- 
 ber of hives, ought to remove their bees to the neighbourhood 
 of heath grounds, if they should even be six or eight miles 
 distant, and allow them to continue in that situation till the 
 heath gives over blossoming. This measure I would earnestly 
 recommend, as the bees, after having had all the advantage 
 of their early situations, will work as late in the season as 
 those in the latest situations. I have often seen a hive, by 
 being placed nigh heath, become ten, twelve, or fifteen pounds 
 heavier in the month of August ; whereas if it had remained 
 in its original early situation, it would probably have become 
 
273 NOTES ON JULY. 
 
 every day lighter after Lammas. The only risk in this case is, 
 that if the weather turn out bad in August, the bee-master 
 will lose all his trouble ; but contingencies of this kind happen 
 in every other business in which mankind engage ; which, 
 nevertheless, do not deter us from adventuring." 
 
 " I can assure my readers, that, in the middle of Septem- 
 ber 1792, I have seen bees in such situations, filling their 
 hives with combs and honey, as plentifully and as expeditiously 
 as if it had been the middle of June. In the beginning of Sep- 
 tember that year, I purchased, for a gentleman in Northumber- 
 land, a considerable number of hives, that were only about 
 half full of combs when placed in his apiary ; but the heath 
 in his grounds being extremely rich and in full blossom, the 
 bees were so expeditious in their labours, that they filled the 
 hives completely with both combs and honey, within a week 
 thereafter." — Bonnar. 
 
 Note IX. 
 
 If e'er disease assail the humming race. — P. 125. 
 
 This and the twenty-five subsequent lines are, with some 
 variations, a translation of the passage in the 4th Georgic, be- 
 ginning with the lines, 
 
 Si vero, quoniam casus apibus quoque nostros 
 Vita tulit, tristi languebunt corpora morbo. 
 
 1. 250, 251. 
 
NOTES ON JULY. 279 
 
 As a curiously bad specimen of what, notwithstanding the 
 high name of the translator, I hold to be a very miserable 
 translation, I will here add Dryden's version of the passage 
 alluded to : 
 
 " But since they share with man one common fate, 
 
 In health and sickness, and in turns of state ; 
 
 Observe the symptoms when they fall away, 
 
 And languish with insensible decay. 
 
 They change their hue, with haggard eyes they stare, 
 
 Lean are their looks, and shagged is their hair* 
 
 And crowds of dead that never must return ^ 
 
 To their loved hives, in decent pomp are borne ; > 
 
 Their friends attend the hearse, the next relations mourn- j 
 
 The sick for air, before the portal, gasp, 
 
 Their feeble legs within each other clasp ; 
 
 Or idle in their empty hives remain, 
 
 Benumb'd with cold, and listless of their gaim 
 
 Soft whispers then, and broken sounds are heard. 
 
 As when the woods by gentle winds are stirred. 
 
 Such stifled noise as the close furnace hides, 
 
 Or dying murmurs of departing tides. 
 
 This when thou see'st, Galbanean odours use, 
 
 And honey in the sickly hive infuse. 
 
 Through reeden pipes convey the golden flood, 
 
 T' invite the people to their wonted food, 
 
 Mix it with thickened juice of sodden wines, 
 
 And raisins from the grapes of Psythian vines : 
 
 To these add pounded galls, and roses dry, 
 
 And with Cecropian thyme, strong-scented centaury, 
 
280 NOTES ON JULY. 
 
 A flower there is, that grows on meadow-ground, 
 Amellus called, and easy to be found ; 
 For from one root the rising stem bestows 
 A wood of leaves, and vi'let purple boughs : 
 The flower itself is glorious to behold, 
 And shines on altars like refulgent gold : 
 Sharp to the taste, by shepherds near the stream 
 Of Mella found, and thence they gave the name ; 
 Boil this restoring root in gen'rous wine, 
 And set beside the door, the sickly stock to dine" 
 
 . . Note X. 
 
 And did the sage, whose powerful genius shed 
 
 A flood of light, where only glimmering rays, &c. — P. 127. 
 
 Till Dr Currie of Liverpool published his book on Fevers, 
 the external application of cold water, as a remedy in fevers, 
 was used with a very timid hand. If he was not absolutely 
 the discoverer of this remedy, he was at least the first physi- 
 cian who discovered the proper modes and times of its applica- 
 tion, and who demonstrated, by a series of observations, and 
 a train of ingenious and conclusive argument, that it was 
 equally safe and efficacious. 
 
NOTES ON AUGUST. 
 
 Note I; 
 
 Sweet is the falling of the single voice. 
 
 And sweet the joining of the choral swell — P. 1 3?. 
 
 " Such have I heard, in Scottish land. 
 Rise from the busy harvest band, 
 When falls before the mountaineer, 
 On lowland plains, the ripened ear. 
 Now one shrill voice the notes prolong, 
 Now a wild chorus swells the song : 
 Oft have I listened, and stood still, 
 As it came softened up the hill, 
 And deemed it the lament of men 
 Who languished for their native glen ; 
 And thought, how sad would be such sound. 
 On Susquehanna's swampy ground, 
 Kentucky's wood-encumbered brake, 
 Or wild Ontario's boundless lake, 
 Where heart-sick exiles, in the strain, 
 Recalled fair Scotland's hills again '." 
 
 Makmion. 
 
NOTES ON AUGUST. 
 
 Note II. 
 
 -A mildew creeps 
 Along the wheaten ridge, blighting the ears ; 
 Haste, then, the sickle urge, fcfo- P. 137. 
 
 w Be very attentive to the wheat crops this month : they 
 are every where liable to this fatal distemper, which admits 
 but of one cure or check, and that is, reaping it as soon as it 
 is struck. The capital managers in Suffolk know well, that 
 every hour the wheat stands after the mildew appears is mis- 
 chievous to the crop. It should be cut, though quite green, 
 as it is found that the grain tills after it is cut, and ripens in a 
 manner that those would not conceive who have not tried the 
 experiment, which I have done many times ; reaping so early, 
 that the labourers pronounced I should have nothing but hens 
 meat. They were always mistaken, for the sample proved 
 good, while others, who left it longer," suffered severely. 
 The fact is now pretty generally known and admitted." 
 
 Young's Farmer's Calendar , 
 
tfOTES ON AUGUST. 26S 
 
 Note III. 
 
 No sign of gathering storms, both wind and rain. 
 Is surer than the sea-fowl 9 s inland flight**—?. 138, 
 
 w Quura medio celeres revolant ex sequore mergi." 
 
 Georg. iv. 1. 361. 
 
 -" The cormorant on high 
 
 Wheels from the deep, and screams along the land." 
 
 Thomson, 
 
 Note IV. 
 
 How richly fraught with vegetable food 
 
 The stream subsides upon the deluged plain. — P. 14 L 
 
 Quique paludis 
 
 Collectum humorem bibula dcducit arena, 
 Prsesertim incertis si mensibus amnis abundans 
 Exit, et obducto late tenet omnia limo, 
 Unde cavge tepido sudant humore lacunae ?" 
 
 Georg. i. 1. 113, 
 
 M And drains the standing waters, when they yield 
 Too large a beverage to the drunken field. 
 
2Si NOTES ON AUGUST. 
 
 But most in autumn, and the showery spring, 
 When dubious months uncertain weather bring ; 
 When fountains open, when impetuous rain 
 Swells hasty brooks, and pours upon the plain ; 
 When earth with slime and mud is covered o'er, 
 Or hollow places spew their watery store." 
 
 Dhyden's Translation* 
 
 The different ways in which a farmer may avail himself 
 of the earthy substances deposited by rivers are various, ac- 
 cording to the situation and form of his grounds. For a de- 
 scription of -varping, or the art of embanking rivers into 
 which the tide flows, in such a manner as to retain the deposit 
 of the spring tides, I refer the reader to the head Warping, 
 under the article Agriculture, in the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. 
 On the banks of rivers where warping cannot be practised, 
 the methods which I have hinted at in the text may, perhaps, 
 be found useful in securing a part of that fertilizing deposit 
 which almost every overflowing river leaves. 
 
 [Note V. 
 
 ' Every sluggish ditch, 
 
 And stagnant puddle, during summer heats, 
 Is bottomed with a fertilizing layer.— -P. 141. 
 
 " This (the oleaning out of ponds) is a part of husbandry 
 too much neglected by many farmers ; but advantage should 
 always be taken of it by a good husbandman, when he is 
 
NOTES ON AUGUST, 285 
 
 lucky enough to succeed a great sloven ; for then he will pro- 
 bably find all ponds, &,c. full of rich mud. 
 
 " It is improbable that pond mud, especially if there is a 
 stream into the water, should ever fail of proving a good 
 manure, when judiciously used." 
 
 Young's Farmer's Calendar. 
 
 Note VI. 
 
 Britannia^ to thy richest treasures blind, 
 Treasures that teem in river, frith, and seas- 
 Why sleep thy laws P P. 143. 
 
 The theme of the British, and especially the Scottish fish- 
 eries, though thoroughly hacknied, is nevertheless a most im- 
 portant one. It is not the less important, that the opinions 
 of writers on political economy, and the firm conviction of 
 the people at large, have produced little else than neglect on 
 the part of Government, or, what is worse, a mixture of wise 
 and foolish regulations, in which the foolish greatly preponde- 
 rate. The most neglected spot of the British dominions is the 
 Shetland and Orkney isles. For a description of the miser- 
 able and grinding vassalage under which the inhabitants (who 
 are almost all fishermen) of these islands exist, I refer the 
 reader to a Tour through some of these islands by Mr Patrick 
 Neill. In this little book, which was violently, but impotent- 
 Iy, attacked by some of the Shetland landholders, or rather 
 slave-holders, there is a great deal of useful information, to 
 which it would be well if some attention were paid by those 
 
236 NOTES ON AUGUST. 
 
 who have the power to rectify abuses. While the conquest 
 of a pestilential island on the other side of the Atlantic costs 
 the nation thousands of lives, and millions of money, the 
 northern and western islands of Scotland, which are demon- 
 strated to be encircled with a rich and inexhaustible mine of 
 national wealth and strength, lie almost neglected. The 
 sums applied out of the prices of the forfeited estates, towards 
 the improvement of the fisheries, are a mere sprinkling, a 
 drop in the bucket. To do any good, extensive tracts of the 
 islands, and of the shores of the Highland mainland, ought to 
 be purchased by Government, on the same principles, and 
 according to the same regulations, as lands are purchased for 
 canals or roads. These domains ought to be parcelled out in 
 small portions of two or three acres, more or less according 
 to the quality of the ground ; a small house should be erected 
 on each parcel, and these little properties should be green in 
 perpetuity to tenants or cottars, who have been turned out 
 of their possessions. The way to make the seas productive 
 is to make the shores populous ; and for this purpose nothing 
 can be so effectual as encouraging settlers with a gift of land. 
 All other bounties are useless. If some such plan had been 
 adopted twenty years ago, the miserable exiles from the 
 Highlands and islands, instead of being under the necessity of 
 transporting themselves to America, or indenting themselves 
 at cottonmills, would have been covering the shores of their 
 native country with a happy and virtuous population. As to 
 expence, the cost of one of our expeditions would have de- 
 frayed it ten times over. 
 
NOTES ON AUGUST, 287 
 
 Note VII. 
 
 How sweet, o'er Scotia's hill-encircled seas.— "P. 144. 
 
 " Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode,. 
 To his hills that encircle the sea." 
 
 Campbell. 
 
 © 
 
NOTES ON SEPTEMBER, 
 
 Note I. 
 
 -While they draw, 
 
 Close to the ground, the sickle, ifc. P. 14$. 
 
 The advantage of cutting close is obvious: but the extent 
 ©f the advantage is not always duly estimated. An inch is 
 the 24th part of a stal^ two feet in height. Of course, every 
 inch that is saved by close cutting adds on a field (the stalk of 
 which is, on an average, two feet in height) a 24th part 
 more straw. Three inches saved would make an addition of 
 one threave in eight. Besides, the lower part of the stalk k- 
 the thickest, as well as the most succulent. 
 
 Note II. 
 
 A row of forked stakes draw cross the field, t^r.— P. 15§. 
 
 In the Highlands, where the rain sometimes falls without 
 intermission for a fortnight or three weeks, drying-house». 
 
NOTES ON SEPTEMBER. 289 
 
 like those at Inveraray, may be useful. But wherever there 
 are fair intervals now and then, the process of drying may be 
 performed more effectually, rapidly, and cheaply, in the open 
 air, than in drying-houses. It is obvious, that in any house, 
 however open it may be laterally r , though the current of air 
 passing through it may seem to be more violent than the 
 wind on the outside, yet, as the corn placed in it must be 
 completely covered by the roof, the evaporation cannot be 
 there so quick as in the open air. In a drying-house, com- 
 pletely roofed, and partially covered at the sides, sifting 
 winds will be felt ; but under the canopy of the sky, where 
 the evaporating moisture is carried off upward as well as ho- 
 rizontally, an hour of fair weather will do more to dry a sheaf 
 of com, than two hours of the sifting winds of a drying- 
 house. As to the expence of the mode of suspending the 
 sheaves in the open air, there can be no doubt that it would 
 be very trifling. 
 
 Note III. 
 
 -0 grand empri%e ! generous boon ' 
 
 That little book to Scotia'' s farthest isles, 
 ' In each low cottage, comfort speaks and peace.— T?. 153. 
 
 The translation of the Bible into the Gaelic language is a 
 
 work which does honour to t^e present age ; and yet the 
 
 undertaking appears at one time to have been opposed by 
 
 some of the members of the Society for the Propagation of 
 
 T 
 
298 NOTES ON SEPTEMBt?. 
 
 the Gospel. The spirit which must have dictated this op 
 oosition, and which still opposes the diffusion of the means 
 of knowledge to the lower orders of society, is so admirably 
 exposed by Dr Johnson, in a letter recorded by Mr Boswell, 
 that I will here quote it. " It is addressed (Mr Boswell men- 
 tions) to the late Mr William Drummond, bookseller in Edin- 
 burgh, a gentleman of good family but small estate, who took 
 arms for the house of Stuart in 1745 ; and during his conceal- 
 ment in London, till the act of general pardon came out, ob- 
 tained the acquaintance of Dr Johnson, who justly esteemed 
 him as a very worthy man." It is as follows : 
 
 " Sir— I did not expect to hear that it could be, in an as- 
 sembly convened for the propagation of Christian knowledge, 
 a question, Whether any nation, uninstructed in religion, 
 should receive instruction ? or, whether that instruction should 
 be imparted to them by a translation of the holy books into 
 their own language ? If obedience to the will of God be ne- 
 cessary to happiness, and knowledge of his will be necessary 
 to obedience, I know not how he that withholds this know- 
 ledge, or delays it, can be said to love his neighbour as him- 
 self. He, that voluntarily continues in ignorance, is guilty of 
 all the crimes that ignorance produces ; as to him, that should 
 extinguish the tapers of a lighthouse, might justly be imputed 
 the calamities of shipwrecks. Christianity is the highest per- 
 fection of humanity ; and as no man is good but as he wishes 
 the good of others, no man can be good in the highest degree, 
 who wishes not to others the largest measure of the greatest 
 good. To omit for a year, or for a day, the most efficacious 
 method of advancing Christianity, in compliance with any 
 
NOTES ON SETTEM BE R. 291 
 
 purposes that terminate on this side of the grave, is a crime of 
 which I know not that the world has yet had an example, 
 except in the practice of the planters of America, a race of 
 mortals whom, I suppose, no other man wishes to resemble. 
 
 " The Papists have indeed denied to the laity the use of the 
 Bible ; but this prohibition, in few places now very rigorously 
 enforced, is defended by arguments which have for their foun- 
 dation the care of souls. To obscure, upon motives merely 
 political, the light of revelation, is a practice reserved for the 
 reformed ; and surely the blackest midnight of Popery is me- 
 ridian sunshine to such a reformation. I am not very willing 
 that any language should be totally extinguished. The simi- 
 litude and derivation of languages afford the most indubitable 
 proof of the traduction of nations and the gene?Jogy of man- 
 kind. They add often physical certainty to historical evidence ; 
 and often supply the only evidence of ancient migrations, and 
 of the revolutions of ages which left no written monuments 
 behind them. 
 
 " Every man's opinions, at least his desires, are a little in- 
 fluenced by his favourite studies. My zeal for languages may 
 seem, perhaps, rather overheated, even to those by whom I 
 desire to be well esteemed. To those who have nothing in 
 their thoughts but trade or policy, present power, or present 
 money, I should not think it necessary to defend my opinions ; 
 but with men of letters I would not unwillingly compound, 
 by wishing the continuance of every language, however nar- 
 row in its extent, or however uncommodious for common pur- 
 poses, till it is reposited in some version of a known book, that 
 it may be always hereafter examined and compared with other 
 languages, and then permitting its disuse. For this purpose 
 
292 NOTES ON SEPTEMBER. 
 
 the translation of the Bible is most to be desired. It is nor. 
 certain that the same method will not preserve the Highland 
 language, for the purposes of learning, and abolish it from 
 daily use. When the Highlanders read the Bible, they will 
 naturally wish to have its obscurities cleared, and to know the 
 history collateral or appendant. Knowledge always desires 
 increase ; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some 
 external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself. 
 When they once desire to learn, they will naturally have re- 
 course to the nearest language by which that desire can be 
 gratified ; and one will tell another, that if he would attain 
 knowledge, he must learn English. 
 
 " This speculation may perhaps be thought more subtle 
 than the grossness of real life will easily admit. Let it, how- 
 ever, be remembered, that the efficacy of ignorance has been 
 long tried, and has not produced the consequence expected. 
 Let knowledge therefore take its turn ; and let the patrons of 
 privation stand awhile aside, and admit the operation of po- 
 sitive principles. 
 
 " You will be pleased, sir, to assure the worthy man who 
 is employed in the new translation, that he has my wishes for 
 his success ; and if here, or at Oxford, I can be of any use, 
 that I shall think it more than honour to promote his under- 
 taking. I am, Sec." 
 
NOTES ON OCTOBER. 
 
 Note I. 
 
 -Hoiv ceaseless is the round 
 
 Cf rural labour ! soon as on the field, bfo— P. 167. 
 
 ■" Redit agricolis labor actus in orbera, 
 
 Atque in se sua per vestigia volvitur annus." 
 
 Georg. iv. 1. 101. 
 
 Note II. 
 
 The bristled piny tribes, l?c. • P. 171. 
 
 I have heard people talk of the foliage of the pine. Now 
 to me it seems as absurd to give the prickles (or, as children 
 very properly term them, the needles and pins) of fir-trees 
 the name of leaves, as it would be to call the tops or cones, 
 fruit. These prickles are, to be sure, all that the pine has 
 
294 NOTES ON OCTOBEE. 
 
 for leaves ; but that does not make them leaves. Some Afri- 
 can birds are covered entirely with hair; yet no one ever 
 thought of calling that hair feathers. For my own part, I 
 think it would not be more absurd to talk of the plumage on 
 the back of a hog, than it is to say that the branches of pines 
 are clothed with foliage. 
 
 Note III. 
 
 Draw tJiem in rows along the bounding line. — P. 172, 
 
 A hedge of closely planted firs is an excellent weather-fence 
 for young plantations of white wood trees. It is from the 
 lateral force of the wind that young trees require to be pro- 
 tected. The freer they are all above, so much the better. In 
 large plantations that are much exposed, bounding hedges of 
 firs will not be sufficient. Crossing rows here and there may 
 be necessary. Such rows do all that is necessary for sheltering 
 plantations, while they have no tendency to stifle the trees of 
 slower growth. It may here be observed, that a tree which 
 has been marred or dwarfed in its growth, by being overtopped 
 by other trees, very seldom recovers its health. It remains a 
 poor ill-thriven plant. 
 
CHES OS OCTOBfc? 
 
 Note IV. 
 
 -_~-^_^^~~ _. — —Improvers, seme there arc. 
 Enamoured of deformity and gloom, 
 Who strangely deem they beautify the land- 
 By planting woods of pine.- — ■ — P. 1T2. 
 
 To persons infected with the mania for pines, the following 
 observations, by one of the best judges of picturesque beauty, 
 may be of use : 
 
 " The trees which principally shewed themselves were 
 larches ; and, from the multitude of their sharp points, the 
 whole country appeared en herisson, and had much the same 
 degree of resemblance to natural scenery, that one of the old 
 military plans, with scattered platoons of spearmen, has to a 
 print after Claude or Poussin. 
 
 " A planter wishes very naturally to produce some ap- 
 pearance of wood as soon as possible : He therefore sets his 
 trees very close together ; and so they generally remain, for 
 his paternal fondness will seldom allow him to thin them suf- 
 ficiently. They are consequently all drawn up together, 
 nearly to the same height ; and, as their heads touch each 
 other, no variety, no distinction of form, can exist, but the 
 whole is one enormous, unbroken, unvaried mass of black. 
 Its appearance is so uniformly dead and heavy, that instead 
 
.NOTES ON OCTOBER. 
 
 of those cheering ideas, which arise from the fresh and luxu- 
 riant foliage, and the lighter tints of deciduous trees, it has 
 something of that dreary image, that extinction of form an^ 
 colour, which Milton felt from blindness ; when he, who had 
 -d objects with a painter's eye, as he described them with 
 a poet's fire, was 
 
 " Presented with an universal blank 
 Of Nature's works." 
 
 It must be considered also, that the eye feels an impres- 
 
 frcan objects analogous to that of weight, as appears from 
 
 'he expression, a lieavy colour, a heavy form ; hence arises 
 
 rte necessity, in all landscapes, of preserving a proper ba- 
 
 : of both ; and this is a very principal part of the art 
 
 of painting. If, in a picture, the one half were to be light 
 
 and airy, both in the forms and in the tints, and the other 
 
 one black heavy lump, the most ignorant person would 
 
 ably be displeased (though he might not know upon 
 
 t principle) with the want of balance, and of harmony ; 
 
 for those harsh discordant effects not only act more forcibly 
 
 from being brought together within a small compass, but 
 
 also because, in painting, they are not authorised by fashion, 
 
 or rendered familiar by custom." 
 
 Price's Essay on the Picturesque. 
 
NOTES ON OCTOBER. 297 
 
 Note V. 
 
 And, with their poisonous drop, the primrose wan, fcta— P. 173. 
 
 " The inside of these plantations fully answers to the 
 dreary appearance of the outside. Of all dismal scenes, it 
 seems to me the most likely for a man to hang himself in : 
 he would, however, find some difficulty in the execution ; for, 
 amidst the endless multitude of stems, there is rarely a single 
 side-branch to which a rope could be fastened. The whole 
 wood is a collection of tall naked poles, with a few ragged 
 boughs near the top ;«— above, one uniform rusty cope, seen 
 through decayed and decaying sprays and branches ;— fcelow, 
 the soil parched and blasted with the baleful droppings ; hard- 
 ly a plant or a blade of grass ; nothing that can give an 
 idea of life or 'vegetation. Even its gloom is without solem- 
 nity ; it is only dull and dismal, and what light there is, like 
 that of hell, 
 
 " Serves only to discover scenes of woe, 
 Regions of sorrow, doleful shades.'* 
 
 Price. 
 
298 NOTES ON OCTOBER. 
 
 Note VI. 
 
 -The alder, too, prefers 
 
 A station dank. -P. 174, 
 
 " There are a sort of husbands who take excessive pains 
 in stubbing up their alders, wherever they meet them in the 
 boggy places of their ground, with the same indignation as 
 one would extirpate the most pernicious of weeds ; and when 
 they have finished, know not how to convert their best lands 
 to more profit than this (seeming despicable) plant might lead 
 them to, were it rightly understood." 
 
 Evelyn on Forest Trees, p. 99. 
 
 Note VII. 
 No tree bears transplantation like the elm, — P. 175. 
 
 " Of all the trees which grow in our woods, there is none 
 that does better suffer the transplantation than the elm ; for 
 you may remove a tree of twenty years growth with undoubt- 
 ed success." Evelyn. 
 
 In transplantation, it is of great importance that the tree 
 be placed precisely in the situation, with respect to the points 
 of the compass, in which it stood before it was removed. This 
 rule is spoken of by Lord Karnes, as proved by experience to 
 
NOTES ON OCTOBER. 299 
 
 be useless. I would trust, however, as much to Virgil's opi- 
 nion on trees, as to that of Lord Karnes, especially as he as- 
 signs a good reason for the rule : 
 
 " Quinetiarn cceli regionem in cortice signant, 
 Ut quo quseque modo steterit, qua parte calores 
 Austrinos tulerit, quae terga oberterit axr; 
 Restituant : adeo in teneris consuescere multum est." 
 
 Georg* ii. 1. 272 
 
 " Beside, to plant it as it was, they mark 
 The heavens' four quarters in the tender bark ; 
 And to the north or south restore the side, 
 Which at their birth did heat or cold abide : 
 So strong is custom ; such effects can use 
 In tender souls of pliant plants produce." 
 
 Dryden's Translation* 
 
 It is true that Virgil is here treating of vines ; but the 
 reason of the thing is equally applicable to other trees ; and 
 the practice as to trees in general is supported by the high 
 authority of Evelyn : 
 
 " For as the southern parts being more dilated, and the 
 pores exposed (as evidently appears in their horizontal sec- 
 tions) by the constant eccentricity of the hyperbolical circles 
 of all trees, (save just under the equator, where the circles 
 concentre, as we find in those hard woods which grow there), 
 ours, being now on the sudden, and at such a season con- 
 verted to the north, does starve and destroy more trees (how 
 
300 NOTES ON OCTOBER. 
 
 careful soever men have been in ordering the roots, and pre- 
 paring the ground), than any other accident whatsoever, ne- 
 glect of staking and defending from cattle excepted." 
 
 Evelyn, p. 31. 
 
 Note VIII. 
 
 And now they hear the woodland harvest home, 
 And store it up for blythsome Hallowe'en P. 177. 
 
 I hope I shall not be accused of presumption, in touching 
 on a subject already so admirably and so fully treated by 
 Burns. I conceived that a poem, partly descriptive of rural 
 manners, would have been materially defective without some 
 notice of Halloween ; and I am little moved by that sort of 
 pride which shrinks from a contrast with unrivalled excellence. 
 I pretend not to enter the lists with Burns ; but I do not con- 
 sider, as sacred and unapproachable ground, every scene which 
 he has immortalized in his poetic landscapes. 
 
 Note IX. 
 
 A few dim candles in derision shine 
 
 Of Romish rites, now happily forgot. P, 178. 
 
 Dr Jamieson traces the superstitious observances of Hal- 
 loween to a heathen origin ; and I agree with him to a certain 
 extent. At the same time, I have no doubt that the particu- 
 
NOTES ON OCTOBER. 301 
 
 lar custom adverted to in the text, was intended as a piece of 
 mockery of those Romish processions by torch and candle light, 
 which the first reformers used every method to ridicule. On 
 this subject, the tradition of the west of Scotland is universal 
 and explicit ; and it will be observed that the period to which 
 this tradition relates is not very remote. 
 
 Note X. 
 
 Then round the fire, full many a cottage ring 
 Cheerful convenes, to burn the boding nuts. — P. 178. 
 
 " Burning the nuts is a favourite charm. They name the 
 lass and the lad to each particular nut, as they lay them on 
 the fire, and accordingly as they burn quietly together, or 
 start from beside one another, the course and issue of the 
 courtship will be." — Notes to Burns's Halloween. 
 
 Note XI. 
 
 Plunging, to catch the floating fruit, that still 
 Eludes the attempt. P. 179. 
 
 Ducking to catch an apple floating in water, produces much 
 unsuccessful and ludicrous stretching of the jaws. 
 
302 NOTES ON OCTCEEK, 
 
 Note XII. 
 
 •Nor is the triple spell 
 Of dishes, ranged to cheat the groping hand, 
 Forgot. P. 179. 
 
 "Take three cjishes ; put clean water in one, foul water 
 in another, and leave the third empty r blindfold a person, and 
 lead him to the hearth where the dishes are ranged ; he (or 
 she) dips the left hand : if by chance in the clean water, the 
 future husband or wife will come to the bar of matrimony a 
 maid ; if in the foul, a widow ; if in the empty dish, it fore- 
 tells, with equal certainty, no marriage at all. It is repeated 
 three times, and every time the arrangement of the dishes is 
 altered." Notes to Halloween. 
 
 The following stanza, descriptive of this custom, places 
 before the mind, not merely the facts as they happen, but -the 
 looks, gestures, and feelings of the actor : 
 
 6; In order, en the clean hearth-stane, 
 
 The luggies three are ranged, 
 And ev'ry time great care is ta'en, 
 
 To see them duly changed : 
 Auld uncle John, wha wedlock's joys 
 
 Sin' Mar's year did desire, 
 Because he gat the toom dish thrice, 
 
 He heaved them on the fire 
 
 In wratli that night." 
 
NOTES ON NOVEMBER. 
 
 Note I. 
 
 -But beware 
 Of clipping close the fetlock. P. 185. 
 
 It is strange how far the docking, shaving, paring, and 
 clipping system is carried. While it is confined to the mane, 
 the ears, or even the tail, it is of minor consequence ; but 
 when Art comes to make alterations on the legs or feet of a 
 horse, she ought to proceed with caution. The old mode of 
 over-paring the hoofs is now exploded ; but the practice of 
 clipping the fetlock is still in full vigour with respect to coach- 
 horses. Indeed the whole pastern joint round and round is 
 clipped close to the skin. The consequence is, that the skin 
 is exposed to the actual contact of the mud and clay. Now, 
 every one knows how much clay, or any other adhesive sub- 
 stance, frets and irritates the skin. Any adhesive substance 
 drying and encrusting on the skin, is in fact a kind of blister. 
 It may not, indeed, raise the cuticle, but it certainly pro- 
 duces soreness and scabs. It has, besides, the effect of con- 
 verting the hairs into bristles ; the consequence of which is, 
 that every time the heels are rubbed, the roots of the hair act 
 as a kind of prickles on the most sensible part of the frame. 
 
30£ NOTES ON NOVEMBER. 
 
 viz. the sub-cuticle. In short, the very important office which 
 the skin performs is marred, and the consequence generally is 
 greasy and swelled heels. 
 
 But the actual application of the shears to the joint is sel- 
 dom confined to the hair. Careless or drunken grooms gene- 
 rally contrive to take in, now and then, a bit of the skin. 
 
 Note II. 
 
 The reeling compass* P. 189. 
 
 That, in thunder-storms, the compass sometimes loses its 
 polarity, is a well known fact. 
 
 Note III. 
 
 Hence Irrigation's power at first uuas learnt ; 
 A custom ancient, yet but rarely used. 
 In cold and watery climes. P. 191. 
 
 The practice of irrigation is very ancient, and seems not to 
 have been confined to grass-fields, or rather it seems to have 
 been confined to corn-fields: 
 
 " Deinde satis * fluvium inducit rivosque sequentes ; 
 Et quum exustus ager morientibus aestuat herbis, 
 
 * Among the ancients the word sata never signified fields 
 >own with grass. 
 
NOTES ON NOVEMBER. 30b 
 
 Ecce, supercilio clivosi tramitis undam 
 Elicit : ilia cadens raucum per levia murmur 
 Saxa ciet, scatebrisque arentia temperat arva." 
 
 Georg. i. 1. lie: 
 
 The immense benefit to be derived from irrigation, com- 
 pared with the cost and trouble, is very succinctly pointed out 
 by Mr Singers, in his report made to the Highland Society 
 concerning the watered meadows on or near the rivers Esk, 
 Ewes, Sec. from which the following are extracts : 
 
 " If the charges incurred, in the mechanical department 
 of the formation of all these meadows, be stated at five pounds 
 per acre, it is probably not far from the average. There have 
 been some which have risen to seven pounds, when there was 
 much cart and spade work to do ; while others have been laid 
 out at a very low rate. 
 
 " The annual returns at present may be safely estimated 
 at 150 stone of hay, of 24 lib. avoirdupois in the stone, -Jor 
 every English acre of meadow. Some of them rise above 
 200 stone, and others fall as low as 100 stone, or even less, 
 being as yet unproductive, in consequence of unfavourable 
 circumstances. But the average return probably rises above. 
 It must be remembered, however, that the returns of these 
 meadows do not consist wholly of hay. I am disposed to 
 think, that the returns in pasture, exclusive of the hay, do 
 aot in general fall short of the full value of the soil in its ori- 
 ginal unimproved state." 
 
 - The annual expences incurred in keeping up the works 
 V 
 
30G NOTES ON NOVEMBER. 
 
 on these meadows, may be considered, at an average, about 
 5s. per acre," 
 
 " The expence of laying out and inclosing these meadow? 
 is the principal obstacle. But when this expence is moderate, 
 and the meadow succeeds well, a single year's crop, almost, 
 or entirely, defrays the charges. When matters are less 
 favourable, they may still be liquidated in two or three sea- 
 sons. And when the expence is very low, the first year more 
 than pays it ; as must have been the case in various instances, 
 where these meadows were done in catch-work, and succeeded 
 well. But if the forming and inclosing should not be fully 
 compensated in less than four or five years, there is reason still 
 to expect that the tenant will be reimbursed. 
 
 " The attention which becomes necessary to the watered 
 meadows in upholding them, and conducting the watering 
 process, is mentioned as an incumbrance. I admit the fact, 
 but what does the farmer obtain without attention ? Let him 
 consider the pains and trouble he must undergo in manuring, 
 fallowing, sowing, and reaping, from arable soils ; and in 
 preserving and bringing into use the respective crops which he 
 raises from them. But with respect to watered meadows, if a 
 few of them are situated contiguous to each other, a common 
 labourer, employed to uphold and water them all, effectually 
 removes this difficulty ; and in other cases, a common farm- 
 servant will very soon learn to attend to the ordinary matters 
 that require his notice." 
 
 " But the profit (says Arthur Young) of irrigating dry 
 slopes of sand and gravel, &c. and poor dry ling moors, is 
 immense. The expence is comparatively trifling, and the im- 
 
NOTES ON NOVEMBER. 30? 
 
 jrovement beyond conception. Such lands may be raised from 
 2s. of 3s. an acre, to 40s. or 50s." 
 
 Farmer's Calendar. 
 
 Note IV. 
 
 Some level fields ', through all the winter months, 
 Are covered warmly with a watery sheet. P. 194. 
 
 " In this month you begin to winter-water the meadows 
 ,and pastures wherever it can be done ; and be assured that no 
 improvement will pay better ; a winter's watering will answer 
 in the hay fully equal to a common manuring of the best 
 stuff you can lay on the land ; and the expence in some situa- 
 tions is trifling. " 
 
 " It is necessary, however, every ten days or fortnight, to 
 give the land air, and to lay it as dry as possible, for the space 
 of a few days. Whenever the frost has given a complete 
 sheet of ice to a meadow, it is adviseabie to discontinue float- 
 ing, for the frost will sometimes take such strong hold of the 
 land as to draw it into heaps, and injure the evenness of the 
 surface."— -Young's Farmers Calendar* 
 
NOTES ON DECEMBER, 
 
 Note I. 
 
 Foes of the insect race t through every cJiange, 
 The embryotic egg, ifc. P. 202. 
 
 44 Most of the smaller birds are supported, especially when 
 young, by a profusion of caterpillars, small worms, and in- 
 jects, with which every part of the vegetable world abounds ; 
 which is by this means preserved from total destruction, con- 
 trary to the commonly received opinion, that birds, particular- 
 ly sparrows, do much mischief in destroying the labours of 
 the gardener and the husbandman. It has been observed, 
 * that a single pair of sparrows, during the time they are 
 feeding their young, w T ill destroy about four thousand cater- 
 pillars weekly ; they likewise feed their young with butter- 
 flies and other winged insects, each of which, if not destroyed 
 in this manner, would be productive of several hundreds of 
 caterpillars.' Swallows are almost continually upon the wing, 
 and, in their curious winding flights, destroy immense quan- 
 tities of flies and other insects, which are continually floating 
 in the air* and- which, if not destroyed by these birds, would 
 
NOTES ON DECEMBER. 309 
 
 Tender it unfit for the purposes of life and health. That active 
 little bird, the tomtit, which is generally supposed hostile to 
 the young and tender buds that appear in the spring, when 
 attentively observed, may be seen running up and down 
 amongst the branches, and picking the small worms that are 
 concealed in the blossoms, and which would effectually de- 
 stroy the fruit. As the season advances, various other small 
 birds, such as the redbreast, wren, winter fauvette or hedge- 
 sparrow, white-throat, red-start, &c. are all engaged in the 
 same useful work, and may be observed examining every leaf, 
 and feeding upon the insects which they find beneath them. 
 These are a few instances of that superintending providential 
 care, which is continually exerted in preserving the various 
 ranks and orders of beings in the senile of animated nature ; 
 and although it is permitted that myriads of individuals should 
 every moment be destroyed, not a single species is lost, but 
 every link of the great chain remains unbroken." — Bewick. 
 
 Note II. 
 
 Who see their halls with happy faces thronged. 
 The rich, the poor, the old and young, all joined 
 In social harmony. P. 207. 
 
 44 Then opened wide the baron's hall, 
 To vassal, tenant, serf, and all ; 
 Power laid his rod of rule aside, 
 And Ceremony doffed his pride." 
 
310 NOTES ON DECEMBER, 
 
 " All hailed with uncontrouled delight, 
 And general voice the happy night, 
 That to the cottage, as the crown, 
 Brought tidings of salvation down. 
 
 " The fire, with well-dried logs supplied, 
 Went roaring up the chimney wide ; 
 The huge hall-table's oaken face, 
 Scrubbed till it shone the day to grace, 
 Bore then upon its massive board, 
 No mark to part the squire and lord." 
 
 Marmicn. Introd, to Canto VI. 
 
 Note in. 
 
 Of all the festive nights which customs old, 
 
 And waning fast, have made the poor man's oivn, 
 
 The merriest of them all is Hoggmanay. — P. 208. 
 
 In Scotland the last night of the year is called Hogmanay, 
 most frequently pronounced hockmanay. For an ingenious 
 account of the origin of this name, see Dr Jamieson's Dic- 
 tionary. 
 
NOTES ON DECEMBER. Ml 
 
 Note IV. 
 
 -No dread is now 
 
 Of walking wraith, or witch, or cantrip fell.— >P. 208. 
 
 " Wraith, properly an apparition in the exact likeness of a 
 person ; supposed by the vulgar to be seen before or soon after 
 death." Jamieson. 
 
 " Cantrip, a charm, a spell, an incantation." — Jamieson. 
 
 Note V. 
 
 With smutted visages, from house to house, 
 
 In country and in town, the guisarts range. — P. 209. 
 
 " Gyser, gysard, a harlequin ; a term applied to those who 
 disguise themselves about the time of the new year."~ — Ja- 
 mieson. ^ 
 
 " Whan gloamin gray comes from the east, 
 
 Through a' the gysarts venture, 
 
 In sarks and paper helmets drest." Nicol's Poems. 
 
 " The custom of disguising now remains only among boys 
 and girls, some of whom wear majsks, and others blacken their 
 faces with soot. They go from door to door, singing carols that 
 have some relation to the season, and asking money or bread. 
 
312 NTOTES ON DECEMBER, 
 
 superior in quality to that used on ordinary occasions."— =- 
 
 MIESON. 
 
 On first coming to a door, they cry or chaunt, 
 
 Hogmenay Troloiay, 
 Give us your white bread. 
 And none of your gray. 
 
 Note VI. 
 
 And sing their madrigals, though coarse and rude. 
 With willing glee, that penetrates the heart. 
 
 " Then came the merry masquers in, 
 And carols roared with blythesome din ; 
 If unmelodious. was the song, 
 It was a hearty note and strong. 
 Who lists may in their mumming see 
 Traces of ancient mystery ; 
 White shirts supplied the masquerade, 
 And smutted cheeks the visors made." 
 
 Marmion. Introd. to Canto VI. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 .7. Pillans if Sons, Printers, Edinburgh. 
 


 
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