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GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

ON LANARKSHIRE.

LANARKSHIRE, or CLYDESDALE, is bounded on the north and north-west by the counties of Stirling, Dumbarton, and Renfrew; on the north-east, by Mid-Lothian and Linlithgowshire; on the east, by Peebles-shire; on the south, by Dumfries-shire; and on the south-west and west, by Ayrshire. It is situate between 55°, 14, 42", and 55°, 56', 10" of north latitude, and 3°, 22, 51", and 4°, 22′, 51" of east longitude. The length of this county, from Queensberry hill on the south, to near the eastern extremity of the burgh of Renfrew on the north-west, is 52 miles; and its greatest breadth, from the confines of Peebles-shire on the east of Garvaldfoot, to the source of the Avon, on the border of Ayrshire, is 33 miles. It contains an area of 926 square miles; or 471,278 Scots statute acres, equal to 581,145 English acres.

Lanarkshire is subdivided into three districts, called the Upper, Middle, and Lower Wards; each of which is under the particular jurisdiction of a sheriff-substitute, appointed by the sheriff-depute of the county. In the Upper Ward, of which Lanark is the chief town, are the parishes of Carluke, Lanark, Carstairs, Carnwath, Dunsyre, Dolphinton, Walston, Biggar, Libberton, Lamington, Coulter, Crawford, a small part of the parish of Moffat, Crawfordjohn, Douglas, Wiston and Roberton, Symington, Covington, Pettinain, Carmichael, and Lesmahago. In the Middle Ward, of which the town of Hamilton is the centre, are comprehended the parishes of Hamilton, Blantyre, Kilbride, Avondale, Glassford, Stonehouse, Dalserf, Cambusnethan, Shotts, Dalziel, Bothwell, East or New Monkland, and West or Old Monkland. The Lower Ward, lying around the city of Glasgow, contains, besides the town parishes of that city, and its country or Barony Parish, the parishes of Calder, Cambuslang, Rutherglen, Carmunnock, Govan, and a part of Cathcart, the remainder of which is in the county of Renfrew.

In its ecclesiastical state, it comprehends the presbyteries of

Lanark, Hamilton, Biggar, (with the exception of Skirling, the united parishes of Broughton, Glenholm, and Kilbucho, in Peeblesshire,) and the greater part of the presbytery of Glasgow. In the mountainous and moorland district of the Upper Ward, the parishes are very extensive; and the manses are at such distances from each other, as almost to preclude that frequent intercourse of the clergy, which is at once so conducive to their social enjoyment, and so useful in affording them the opportunity of mutual consultation, in regard to the ecclesiastical interests of their individual parishes, or of the church in general.

Topography. In a county so extensive as Lanarkshire, the aspect is necessarily much diversified. A large district of it towards Dumfries-shire is bleak and mountainous. Seen from a distance, especially from an eminence, it presents an appearance equally confused and uninviting. Hills of various elevation appear so crowded together as hardly to leave an opening for the approach of man, and so bleak and barren as to bid defiance to all the efforts of man to improve them. Their inhospitable aspect is relieved by no features of grandeur; for they have neither the loftiness, nor the rugged sternness, which give such sublimity to the mountain scenery in the Highlands. As we draw nearer them, however, their forbidding features relax, and scenes of pastoral beauty and even richness here and there open upon us, the more charming the less they are expected. On the sides of the least promising hills are numbers of well-fed sheep; while, in the valleys below, these are in some instances mingled with equally thriving herds of blackcattle. And in the highest and wildest part of the Upper Ward, holms of considerable beauty stretch on both sides of the Clyde and its tributaries. Even where these are bare of wood, they present, in the richer verdure of their pastures, or in their varied crops, a pleasing contrast to the dark and comparatively barren appearance of the adjacent hills. But when they are adorned, as they generally are from Lamington downwards, with old or more recent plantations, they combine with the river and mountain features of the scenery in presenting a sweetness and even richness of landscape rarely surpassed. As we proceed northward, the hills themselves assume a more softened aspect, covered with grass to their summits; while the straths which they enclose, particularly Douglasdale, vie in beauty with the valleys on the Clyde. These hills are gradually softened down to those undulations, for which Lanark and some of the lower parishes are remarkable; and which

give so peculiar an appearance to the scenery on both sides of the Clyde.

Of the scenery around the Falls of Clyde, a correct and vivid description will be found in the account of the parish of Lanark. The time to see these falls in all their own magnificence, and all the richness of their accompanying beauties, is after a heavy fall of rain, in the months of July, August, or September. Then the great volume of water dashing at Cora Linn over a precipitous rock, 84 feet in height, surmounted on each side by lofty banks crowned with fine old trees in the richest variety of foliage,-the fanciful yet tastefully appropriate structure of Corehouse perched like an eyrie on the boldest and highest bank, and harmonizing finely with the magnificence amid which it is placed,—the spacious and beautiful domains of Bonnington overlooked by Corehouse from the opposite bank, and sloping down to the handsome, clean, and thriving establishment of New Lanark, where a numerous and happy manufacturing population pursue, under the most judicious regulations, their profitable industry-exhibit one of the most interesting pictures that is anywhere to be seen of the grandeur of nature and the triumphs of art,-the dignity of baronial magnificence blending with the comforts of manufacturing wealth.

From this part of the Clyde, the scenery through which it passes in its course through Lanarkshire, is particularly beautiful and rich. From Lanark to Hamilton is one continued orchard; and when the fruit-trees are in blossom, the drive through it is one of the most delightful that can be enjoyed. The county becomes, after that, open, champaigne, rich, and well cultivated, even at a considerable distance from the banks of the river. But there are extensive tracts of it which form a dreary contrast to these scenes of beauty and fertility; and the traveller who enters Lanarkshire from the south, the south-east, the east, or north-east, finds himself in very cheerless wastes of bleakness and sterility.

Soil and Cultivation.-The diversity of soils in this county corresponds with its diversity of aspect. According to Naismith's computation, between two-thirds and three-fourths of the Upper Ward is occupied by hill or moorland, not capable, from the elevation of the country, of much agricultural improvement. Forty-two years, however, in a country, where enterprize has been so active, and wealth so rapidly progressive as in Lanarkshire, necessarily produce great improvements in cultivation and in soil; and were Naismith now to visit the Upper Ward, he would find beautiful seats and a smiling country, in places which he would in 1798 have pronounced al

most irreclaimable. Within the last few years, the tract of country along the line of the great road to Carlisle presents to the eye of the traveller hundreds of acres bearing rich crops, where he formerly saw nothing but cheerless unproductive moss. Similar improvements have taken place in situations less open to general observation; and although a very large proportion of the Upper Ward is still unconscious of the plough, as being better adapted to pasture than to tillage, and in many places, indeed, so hopelessly bleak, as to forbid all attempts of the agriculturist, the proportion is certainly considerably less than Naismith estimates it. It is owing to the elevation, however, rather than the soil, that so large a portion of this Ward is kept in pasture. Even where tillage has not been attempted, the pasture lands have been greatly improved by surface-draining, which is now almost universal in the moorland districts; and in some of the highest and wildest parts of the county, the verdant spots that here and there give indication of their former cultivation as croft-land, and the parks, browsed by thriving cattle, and fields bearing good crops of corn, near the farm-houses, prove what might yet be done in reclaiming waste lands, and hold out the most tempting inducements to farther improvement. It is impossible to travel over the wide tracts of moor, in a great proportion of which a soil naturally good is left comparatively useless through neglect, without regretting that landlord and tenant were not more alive to their mutual interests in improv ing it; that the enterprize and industry of the farmer were not more stimulated by the fostering encouragement of the proprietor. The improvements might be gradually carried on with but little annual outlay; and although it would be, in many instances, a mere waste of industry and means to attempt to convert it into a corn country;-by draining marshy ground, turning it up with the plough, quickening it with lime, and after taking a crop or two, sowing it down with the best kinds of perennial grasses, sound and nutritive pasture might be brought to cover and beautify vast tracts, that now lie in the most cheerless, unprofitable, and unseemly state. Let only a little be done on each moorland farm in this way annually-a due premium or allowance being made to the tenant-and what a change might within a short time be made in the appearance and value of the country!

The quality of the soil does not always correspond with the elevation. In the highest parts of the Upper Ward, the soil is, in some places, particularly fertile. As the most solid bodies, when

they cease to increase, tend to dissolution, even the trap rocks exfoliate; and the decomposed matter, wherever it lodges, produces a fertility whic displays itself in the deep verdure of the herbage. The decomposition of freestone, on the contrary, tends only to sterility. From this cause the pastures on the heights of Crawford, upon hard rock, covered with a thick mixture of short heath and sweet grasses, and sometimes with a close verdant carpet with very little heath, are particularly sound and healthy. The principal part of the arable land in this part of the county, lies in the parishes around Tinto, along the side of the Clyde. The alluvial soil of the meadows is of the nature of carse ground, and is exceedingly fertile. In the uplands, which are, with a few exceptions, of a light and friable quality, with an under stratum of sand or gravel of considerable depth, the soil is likewise fertile. At a greater distance from the river, the soil is in many places moorish and spongy. In the greater part of the parishes of Lanark and Lesmahago the soil is light, friable, and dry, bearing a resemblance to that in the neighbourhood of Tinto, though less fertile. In the lower part of Lesmahago, the clay soil begins to appear. In Carluke parish, a great proportion of the land is clay, or has a dense argillaceous bottom, and is damp, cold, and sterile. Part of it, however, is of better quality, and that portion of the parish which borders on the Clyde is equally fertile and picturesque.

The Middle Ward, although it exhibits great diversity of soil, is generally of a clayey nature, with a greater or less intermixture of sand, and varies greatly in colour, conformation, and fertility. The bottom is solid and argillaceous,—sometimes apparently homogeneous, composed of regular horizontal laminæ,-but more generally of a mixed nature, without the appearance of divisions, and mixed up with small roundish stones of different kinds. Small tracts of sandy or gravelly soil sometimes occur; and when a bed of this description is of tolerable depth, the land is dry; but whereever the under stratum of clay approaches the surface, the soil is light and wet. In the valleys along the Clyde and other considerable streams, a deep, rich alluvial soil lies upon a bed of open gravel. At a distance from the river is frequently found a thin loose soil, lying upon a clay bed, apt to heave with the changes of the weather, and unfit for every useful kind of vegetable production. Somewhat similar to this, but more productive of grass, is the black or grey soil on the high moorish grounds. A large proportion of the Middle Ward is occupied with moss or peat

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