Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/44

72 out-field and in; bound to pay kain and to perform personal services; clothed in hodden, and lodged in hovels." The Highland proprietors, instead of attempting to improve the condition of their farmers and peasantry, were driving them into exile, converting the cultivated lands on their estates into pasturage, and supplying the place of thir tenantry with black cattle. Mr Dempster, in order to find employment for the population thus cruelly driven from their native country, became more strenuous in his endeavours for the encouragement of our fisheries ; while, in the course he pursued on his own estate, he held out a praise-worthy example to the neighbouring proprietors, of the mode which they ought to pursue in the improvement of their estates. He granted long leases to his tenants, and freed them from all personal services or unnecessary restrictions in the cultivation of their grounds; he inclosed and drained his lands; he built the neat village of Lethain; he drained and improved the loch or moss of Dunnichen, and the peat bog of Restennet, by which he added greatly to the extent and value of his property, and rendered the air more salubrious. And having ascertained by experiments that his land abounded in marl, he immediately rendered the discovery available; in so much, it is estimated, that he acquired a quantity of that valuable manure of the value of £14,000. But nothing can prove more encouraging to the patriotic endeavours of proprietors for the promotion of agriculture and the improvement of their estates, than the following letter, addressed by Mr Dempster to the editor of the Farmer's Magazine—a work which had been dedicated to himself:

"Sir,—How much depends upon mankind thinking soundly and wisely on agricultural topics, which, in point of extent, surpass all others, and which may be said to embrace the whole surface of the globe we inhabit! I would still be more lavish in my commendation of your design, were it not that I should thereby indirectly make a panegyric on myself. For these last forty years of my life, I have acted in the management of my little rural concerns on the principles you so strenuously inculcate. I found my few tenants without leases, subject to the blacksmith of the barony; thirled to its mills; wedded to the wretched system of out-field and in: bound to pay kain, and to perform personal services; clothed in hodden, and lodged in hovels. You have enriched the magazine with the result of your farming excursions. Pray, direct one of them to the county I write from; peep in upon Dunnichen, and if you find one of the evils I have enumerated existing; if you can trace a question, at my instance, in a court of law, with any tenant as to how he labours his farm; or find one of them not secured by a lease of nineteen years at least, and his life,—the barony shall be yours. You will find me engaged in a controversy of the most amiable kind with lord Carrington, defending the freedom of the English tenants from the foolish restrictions with which their industry is shackled; prohibitions to break up meadow land, to sow flax, to plant tobacco, &c., all imposed by foolish fears, or by ignorance;. and confirmed by the selfish views of land stewards, who naturally wish the dependence of farmers on their will and pleasure. God knows, Scotland is physically barren enough, situated in a high latitude, composed of ridges of high mountains; yet, in my opinion, moral causes contribute still more to its sterility.

"I urge the zealous prosecution of your labours, as a general change of system and sentiment is only to be effected slowly; your maxims are destined, first, to revolt mankind, and, long after, to reform them. There never was a less successful apostle than I have been. In a mission of forty years, I cannot boast of one convert I still find the tenants of my nearest neighbours and best friends, cutting down the laird's corn, while their own crops are imperiously calling for their sickles. I am much pleased with the rotations you suggest;