a fault or vice much more pardonable here than in any other part of Great Britain, or difcouraged by the form of government under which they live, the people of this island study to rear up fheep, and to kill wild-fowl, much more than to engage deeply in the more toilfome bufinefs of husbandry.

All the ground hitherto cultivated in this island, lies round the village. The foil is thin, full of gravel, and of confequence very fharp. This, though naturally poor, is however rendered extremely fertile, by the fingular induftry of very judicious hufbandmen: these prepare and manure every inch of their ground, fo as to convert it into a kind of garden. All the inftruments of agriculture they use, or indeed require, according to their fyftem, are a fpade, a mall, and a rake or harrow. After turning up the ground with a spade, they rake or harrow it very carefully, removing every small ftone, every noxious root, or growing weed that falls in their way and pound down every ftiff clod into duft.

It is certain, that a small number of acres well-prepared in St. Kilda, in this manner, will yield more profit to the hufbandman than a much greater number when roughly handled in a hurry, as is the cafe in the other weftern ifles. The people of St. Kilda fow and reap very early, I mean earlier than any of their neighbours on the western coaft of Scotland. The foil, I have already remarked, is naturally fharp, and not fpungy. The heat of the fun, reflected from the hills and rocks into a low valley facing

the fouth-eaft, muft in the fummer time be quite intense; and however rainy the climate is, the corn muft, for these reasons, grow very faft, and, ripen early. I faw the barley of this ifland about the beginning of June, and obferved that it was higher in the ftalk than any I had ever seen elsewhere at that season.

The harvest is commonly over at this place before the beginning of September; and fhould it fall out otherwife, the whole crop would be almost destroyed by the equinoctial ftorms.-All the inland

on the western coaft, have great reafon to dread the fury of autumnal tempests: these, together with the exceffive quantities of rain they have generally, throughout feven or eight months of the year, are undoubt edly the moft difadvantageous and unhappy circumstances of their lives. The St. Kildians have more than an equal portion of this fore evil.

Barley and oats are the only forts of grain known at St. Kilda; nor does it feem calculated for any other. Fifty bolls of the former, old Highland measure, are every year brought from there to Harris ; and all the wettern islands hardly produce any thing fo good of the kind. Potatoes have been introduced among that people only of late, and hitherto they have raised but small quantities of them.

The only appearance of a garden in this whole land, fo the natives call their principal island in their own language, is no more than a very inconfiderable piece of ground, which is inclofed, and planted with fome cabbages.

On the east-fide of the ifland, at the distance of a quarter of a mile from the bay, lies the village, where the whole body of this little people (the number of adult males amounting to no more than twenty-two) live together, like the inhabitants of a town or city. Their houfes are built in two rows, regular and facing one another, with a tolerable causeway in the middle, which they call the ftreet.

Thefe habitations are made and contrived in a very uncommon manner. Every one of them is flat in the roof, or nearly fo, much like the houses of fome oriental nations. That from any one of these the St. Kildians have borrowed their manner of building, no man of fenfe will entertain a fufpicion. They have been taught this leffon by their own reafon, improved by experience.

The place in which their lot has fallen, is peculiarly fubject to violent fqualls and furious hurricanes; were their houses raised higher than at present, they be lieve the first winter ftorm would bring them down about their ears. For this reafon the precaution they take in giving them roofs much flatter than ordinary, seems to be not altogether unne ceffary.

The walls of thefe habitations are made of a rough gritty kind of ftones, huddled up together in hafte, without either lime or mortar, from eight to nine feet high.

In the heart of the walls are the beds, which are overlaid with flags, and large enough to contain three perfons. In the fide of every bed is an opening, by way of door, which is much too

narrow and low to anfwer that purpose.

All their dwelling houses are divided into two apartments by partition walls. In the divifion next the door, which is much the largeft, they have their cattle ftalled during the whole winter feafon; the other ferves for kitchen, hall, and bed-room.

It will be readily expected that a race of men and women, bred in St. Kilda, muft be a very flovenly generation, and every way inelegant. I confefs it is impoffible to defend them from this imputation. Their method of preparing a fort of manure, to them indeed of vast use, proves that they are very indelicate.

After having burnt a confiderable quantity of dried turf, they fpread the afhes with the nicest care over the floor of that apartment, in which they eat and fleep. These afhes, fo exactly laid out, they cover with a rich friable fort of earth over this bed of earth they scatter a proportionable heap of that duft into which peats are apt to crumble away: this done, they water, tread, and beat the whole compoft into a hard floor, on which they immediately make new fires very large, and never extinguished till they have a fufficient ftock of new afhes on hand. The fame operations are repeated with a never-failing punctuality, till they are just ready to fow their barley; by that time the walls of their houses are funk down, or to fpeak more properly, the floors rifen about four or five feet.

To have room enough for accumulating heaps of this com poft one above another, the ancient.

St.

St. Kildians had ingenuity enough to contrive their beds within the linings of their walls, and it was for the fame reason they took care to raise these walls to an height far from being common in the other western islands.

The manure produced in this way muft undoubtedly be good, though probably rather fharp than of long duration, as it is fcattered in fmall quantities upon the furface of the ground; fo that the fiery and faline particles of it muft foon evaporate. Be that as it will, those who practife this art are abundantly lavith in its praifes. They call it a commodity ineftimably precious; and one may venture to affirm, that a genuine St. Kildian would fcruple to barter it away for all the diamonds in Brafil and Golconda.

It is certain, that cleanliness muft contribute greatly to health, and of courfe longevity; but in spite of that inftance of indelicacy now given, and many more which might have been added, I have not been able to find, that the people of this ifland are more fhort-lived than other men.Their total want of thofe articles of luxury, which have fo natural a tendency to destroy the conftitution of the human body, and their moderate exercises, will, together with fome other circumftances, keep the balance of life equal enough between them and those who are abfolute ftrangers to flovenlinefs.

Befides the dwelling-houfes already defcribed, there are a prodigious number of little cells, difperfed over all the island; which confift entirely of ftones, without

any the smallest help of timber. Thefe cells are from twelve to eighteen feet in length, and a little more than feven in height. Their breadth at the foundation, is nearly equal to the height. Every ftone hangs above that immediately below, not perpendicularly, but inclines forward, fo as to be nearer the oppofite fide of the grotto; and thus by imperceptible degrees, till the two higheft courfes are near enough to be covered by a fingle flag at the top. To hinder the rain from falling down between the interftices above, the upper part of the building is overlaid with turf, which looks like a fine greenfward, while new.

The inhabitants fecure their peats, eggs, and wild-fowl, within thefe fmall repofitories: every St. Kildian has his fhare of them, in proportion to the extent of land he poffeffes, or the rent he pays to the fteward. From the conftruction of thefe cells, and the toil they must have coft before they could have been finished, it feems plain that those who put them together, were, if not more ingenious than their neighbours in the adjacent iflands, at least more induftrious than their own fucceffors.

The St. Kilda method of catching wild-fowl, is very entertaining.

The men are divided into fowling parties, each of which confifts generally of four perfons diftinguifhed by their agility and fkill. Each party must have at least one rope about thirty fathoms long: this rope is made out of a ftrong raw cow hide, falted for that very purpose, and

cut

Anecdotes of Jethro Tull, esq; inventor of the new method of husbandry, called the horse-hoeing, or, more justly from his name, the Tullian husbandry.

JE

Ethro Tull, Efq; of Profperous farm, on the borders of Berkshire, where he wrote his treatise on horfehoeing husbandry, was a gentleman of an ancient family in Oxfordshire, had a competent paternal eftate, and a liberal university education, which he improved by applying himself to the ftudy of the law, not as a profeffion, but to inveftigate the true principles of the conftitution of his country, in which he hoped, one day or other, to make no inconfiderable figure; after being admitted a barrifter in the temple, he made what is called the grand tour, vifited the feveral courts of Europe, and in every country through which he paffed, was a diligent obferver of the foil, culture, and vegetable productions natural to each; and of the different methods of ploughing, fowing, planting, and reaping; and the various inftruments made use of in various countries for that purpose.

Upon his return home, he fettled upon his eftate in Oxfordshire, married a lady of a genteel family; and being naturally inclined to an active life, occupied a farm of his own; and applied himself to the management of it in the way that he thought moft rational.

In obferving the vineyard culture in the moft fruitful parts of France, he difcovered, or thought he discovered, one general method of cultivating all land to advantage in all countries; he obferved, that where the vines flourished beft, the vineyards were moft regularly planted, and the foil moft per

:

fectly dreft; that by frequently ploughing, hoeing, and stirring, the ground was kept fine and light, the weeds deftroyed, and the foil enriched that where this care was taken, the clusters were large and full, and the juice rich and highflavoured; but where the vines were fuffered to grow promifcuoufly, and all culture neglected, fave pruning, the clusters were comparatively lean and meagre, the juice poor and flat, and the annual fhoots far lefs luxuriant than in the vineyards properly managed. From thefe obfervations he concluded that a regular method of planting or fowing every kind of vegetable was the way to propagate it to most advantage, and he began with experiments upon corn and grafs to confirm or difprove his new hypothefis.

The fuccefs of the experiments he made in his garden, encouraged him to extend them into his field, and he now firft began to contrive, inftruments to facilitate the labour,

and to render the whole business of hufbandry as expeditious in his new way, as it was, after long practice, in the old.

Novelty always excites curiofity; many gentlemen came from different parts on the fame of this new method of farming; fome of whom were perfuaded by the weight of Mr. Tull's arguments, to go hand in hand with him in the course of his experiments; while others, who thought themselves more wife, and more difcerning, took every occafion of ridiculing the practice, and of reprefenting it as a fanciful project, that after a great expence would end in nothing but the ruin of the projector. In general, the whole body of farmers and huf bandmen pronounced the man a conjurer, who, by fowing a third

part