LEOD, Esq. of Harris, on his Estate of Harris, in 1819 (See particular Contents prefixed to the Article), 271-560 LETTER from H. HOME DRUMMOND, Esq. of Blairdrum- WEDGE-DRAINING CLAY-LAND, Description of this Im- provement, in a Letter from CHARLES ALEXANDER KELP, on the Improvement of, by ANDREW FYFE, M. D. ZOSTERA, or SEA-GRASS, on the Preparation of, in Orkney. MACHINERY. Description of an Instrument for ascertaining the Compo- 618-621 of a Machine for SWEEPING CHIMNEYS. By Mr JAMES WHITE, Engineer, 629-632 APPENDIX. No. L-List of Members of the Society in January 1824, INTRODUCTION. ACCOUNT OF THE PRINCIPAL PROCEEDINGS OF THE HIGHLAND SOCIETY OF SCOTLAND, SINCE NOVEMBER 1820. THE Introduction to the first volume of "Transactions of the Highland Society of Scotland," embraces a general view of its Proceedings from the institution of the Society to the year 1799. Each of the following volumes, in like manner, contains introductory notices applicable to the periods intervening between the date of its publication and that of the volume immediately preceding. The fifth volume having been published in November 1820, the introduction to the present volume will therefore include a brief detail of some of the principal proceedings of the Society during the last three years. The Society's rewards are chiefly intended to encourage actual improvements on the part of the Te VOL. VI. a nantry throughout Scotland; and, being usually distributed in pecuniary premiums, will be best explained by a reference to the List of Premiums offered and awarded, as annually advertised. It may be sufficient, therefore, in this place merely to observe, that the Society's premiums have been extended in variety, and amount, in a ratio corresponding to the continued and increasing support which it has hitherto been so successful in obtaining from the public. It was noticed in the introduction to the first volume, in 1799, that the pecuniary rewards then of fered had advanced to L. 250 per annum; and although, as observed in the last volume, the Society does not now receive any grant of public money, yet, from the increasing accession of members, the prudent administration of the funds, and the economical system on which the Society's business is conducted, the Directors have been enabled, during the last three years, to offer, in the annual List of Premiums, rewards to the amount of about L. 1400 Sterling, for promoting Agricultural and other improvements in Scotland. AGRICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY. In the third volume of these Transactions, which was published in 1807, it is remarked, that the Society, although originally instituted more particularly to encourage Improvements in the Highlands, had even then found it practicable to extend its exer tions to all parts of Scotland, and had thus gradually become the General Agricultural Society of this part of the United Kingdom. This character it now enjoys; and, whilst it still continues to devote a great share of its attention to promote the prosperity of the Highlands, where agriculture is less advanced, and the stimulus of rewards consequently more requisite, the Premiums are, with a most impartial hand, distributed all over Scotland. 1. Green Crops. In many remote districts of the country, where the improved system of modern Husbandry is either entirely unknown, or only in its infancy, the injury occasioned by a deficiency in the supply of food for the support of live-stock during winter, has been often severely felt. During the period under review, premiums for raising turnips and potatoes in drill, with clover, rye-grass, and other grasses, have been given in Orkney and Shetland, and in several islands and remote districts of the counties of Argyll, Inverness, Ross, and Cromarty, which, it is very gratifying to the Society to find, have been attended with the best results. In Orkney and Shetland, where turnip and clover crops were almost unknown, they are now very generally raised after the drill system, even by the small tenantry, and with great success. |