If the first person met in the A hare crossing the road before A dog howling with his head

upon any business, if the horses' heads are turned towards you, it is lucky; if going from you, is ill luck. morning is plain-soled, it is unlucky. any one in the morning, is ill luck. towards any particular house forebodes death to some member of the family of that house. To pare the nails and put the cuttings into the fire was considered very wrong, I never could learn why. In cutting the hair, especially of children, the hair is carefully collected and burned. We have even seen the house swept and the sweepings put into the fire. In Dr. Livingstone's Travels he refers to a similar practice amongst some African tribes on the Zambesi. They carefully collect, and either burn or bury the hair cut from the heads of children, lest any of it fall into the hands of a witch. Whether this was the fear of those who practised the same thing in Partick, I cannot say. Killing a spider was considered unlucky; we have seen them swept out the house pretty roughly, while they would not kill them. This superstition is probably from an old legend that a spider wove its web over the place where the baby Christ was hid, who was thus saved from murderers. Clocks or black beetles in a house were considered lucky; we have seen them carefully lifted by tongs or shovel and put out, because to kill them took away the luck. A flake of soot hanging on the grate bars indicated an approaching stranger. A cock crowing with his head in at the door indicates the visit of a stranger that day, and the house was often rede in preparation, the sign being considered so certain. A small stem of tea-leaf floating on the tea-cup is the sign of a visitor coming. To be in possession of money when we first see the new moon is considered very lucky. If at the first sight of the new moon the person stands still and bows to it three times, he or she is sure either to receive a gift or find something good before that moon expires. When a baby is first brought into the house of a neighbour or friend something should be given to it, such as a little sugar put into its mouth; this insures it against an "evil eye" in that house. An omission of this has often given great offence, and if the child took ill shortly after, grave suspicions were held as to the cause.

Cure for Warts. When the person troubled with warts first sees the new moon, he is to take a small portion of the earth from under the right foot and make a paste of it, and lay it upon the wart, and tie a cloth over it, which is not to be removed till the change of the moon, when the wart will be completely removed.

Suicides. The body of a person committing suicide will not undergo decomposition until the time the person would have died from natural causes. I have heard several illustrations of this strange

belief.

Divine Warning. Before any church was built in Partick, there was occasionally an evening sermon preached in a small school-room in the village. One Sabbath evening in winter a very popular preacher was expected-the school-room was filled nearly to suffocation. As the expected preacher did not come, a weaver belonging to the village stepped up to the desk, and, after devotional exercise, gave out a text, and divided it in the usual conventional style, but by this time the light from the candles, which were suspended from the low ceiling, became very dim, which snuffing did not improve; then two or three females fainted, and the confusion and alarm became such that the proceedings were brought to a close. It was remarked that when the preacher stopped, and the females were being carried out, the candles burned as bright and clear as at the beginning. This was considered by many as an evident proof of God's righteous displeasure at an ordinary and uneducated man assuming the office of an ordained minister, and so strong was this belief in the minds of some that they would not again go to any more sermons in the school-room, except they were sure that the preacher was an ordained man. A little knowledge of chemistry would have explained the phenomena differently.

Such are a few of the popular superstitions common in Partick, I will say about forty or fifty years back, and which may be called the belief of the uneducated working classes, which let us hope the school, the pulpit, and the press have in a great measure dispelled from the minds of that class.

NO. XXVIII.

REMARKS ON ANCIENT AGRICULTURE, AND ON THE AGRICULTURAL CONDITION OF CLYDESDALE DURING THE ROMAN PERIOD AND SUBSEQUENTLY:

BY

ALEXANDER GALLOWAY, Esq.

[Read at a Meeting of the Society held at Glasgow on 5th December, 1864.]

By reverting shortly to a portion of what is known regarding the practice of agriculture in other countries and more ancient times, I wish to fortify the inference I draw from investigations of early writings bearing upon the state of Clydesdale during the dark and middle ages, that it can hardly have been so "stern and wild" as popular writers of the last three centuries have represented, and that its inhabitants have not been so rude and low in the scale of civilization as is commonly supposed.

On the subject before us, our very earliest information, familiar although it be to everybody, is still perhaps the most interesting, as it is the most sublime of written archives. "Let there be light; let there be a firmament; let the earth appear with its waters, and bring forth plants and living creatures; let man, in the image of his Maker, people the earth and subdue it, and have for his use all that it contains; but of the sweat of his brow shall he eat bread." Next we learn that the first-born son of the first man was "a tiller of the ground," and the second "a keeper of sheep." How many thousands of years have rolled past since then is a question for which, perhaps, there will never be means of satisfactory solution. We turn thankfully to the scanty and scattered records which tell us of man's occupations at certain periods during this great unmeasured space of time, and we find, as a rule, that whenever and wherever many of the human family had congregated, and the earth's surface around them was capable of being cultivated, or of supporting the animals most available for their wants, the majority were still tillers of the ground

and keepers of sheep. Farther, we find that whenever and wherever a country was peaceful, populous, and prosperous, the husbandmen and the shepherds were the most skilful as such.

When we have pondered over the many interesting passages in the books of Moses, Ruth, Chronicles, Nehemiah, Isaiah, Amos, and others, which relate to agricultural matters chiefly in Palestine, we search in the volumes of Herodotus, who wrote three-and-twenty centuries ago, and in those of later ancient writers for information given about the agriculture of other peoples in Asia, as the Assyrians and Persians, and of the Egyptians in Africa, who carried the art to the highest perfection, and employed many ingenious mechanical contrivances. Next we study, with equal delight and wonder, the writings of Greek authors, as to agriculture in their country long before the Christian era. Hesiod, Homer, Aristotle, Xenophon, Democritus, Theocritus, and Theophrastus, have left us more or less valuable matter on the subject; and the famous Roman agricultural author, Marcus Terentius Varro, who died 28 B.C., refers to more than fifty other Greek writers as extant in his time. Hesiod's book on farming and economics was written nearly 1,000 years before Christ. His details about summer fallowing, manuring, sowing, and reaping, and the like, are just such as are thought sensible at the present time.

The Carthaginians were great in agriculture, as in commerce, for several centuries. Perhaps the most remarkable of ancient writers on the subject was of their country, namely, Mago, who wrote about 600 years before Christ. He displays a thorough knowledge of cattle breeding, rearing, feeding, and farriery, and describes the points for judgment in awarding prizes. His twenty-eight books were translated into Greek by Dionysius for the use of students, and long afterwards into Latin by Syllanus, under instructions from the Roman Senate, as a class-book for the use of their nation.

The Romans were, probably, from the beginning of their history, skilled in agriculture; and there is enough known about Italy continuously to justify a belief that the farming in that country at various localities has always been, as it still is in respect of science applied to the raising of crops, the best in Europe. Several of the old Roman writers on farming are commonly read by advanced students still-as Cato, Varro, Virgil, Cicero, Pliny, Columella, and Palladius; and many other classical authors contain incidental notices of relative

nature.

We learn, among other things, from these Roman writers, the

following facts:-Before the Romans entered Britain as its invaders, the lands of Italy, Gaul, Germany, Spain, and of their other colonies in Europe, Asia, and Africa, were for the most part held in property by landlords, and in occupation either by the owners or by tenants for payment of rent in money, or kind, or services. The terms of tenancy varied according to agreement, as for one year only up to thirty years, or a lifetime, and nineteen years was not an unusual term. Agreements were verbal or written, and the written leases often contained strict clauses for securing against deterioration. Estates were of all sizes, from a single acre, up to many thousand acres. They were acquired by grant, in reward for public services, or by inheritance, bequest, purchase, or otherwise. Pliny the younger said the price of land in his time was about twenty-five years' purchase of its free rental value, the purchaser expecting to realise about four per cent.; and bonds over property in land were usual, the rate of interest being about six per cent. Landlords of the smaller estates commonly resided on them, and many engaged personally in the management, conducting, or performing of the farm labour. Owners of large estates had bailiffs (villici) for their home farms. Difficulties in the management of estates often occurred from the tenants being without sufficient capital, in consequence of which arrangements were made that the landlord was to supply the stock and seeds, machinery, and implements, and draw from the tenant interest on the value thereof, in addition to rent for the use of the land. Landlords held by common law the same sort of lien over stock and crop, for security of their rents, as is still held. Farm buildings were generally good, commodious, and properly adapted to wants and circumstances, some extravagantly large and fine, and some the reverse. Palladius recommended that landlords should not expend more in the cost of the homestead than about two years' rent of the land. Fences of almost every conceivable kind were constructed or grown for enclosing parks, fields, orchards, and gardens, and for protecting corn lands along road-sides. Roads for public use and for farm occupation abounded in the populous districts, and were often well constructed and carefully maintained. Embankments of lakes and rivers and streams were common for preserving good land from injury by floods, and for converting marshes into useful meadows or corn fields. Irrigation, or artificial watering of land, in warm and dry climates, was practised very extensively, and often on a prodigious scale. Drainage of wet lands in rainy climates was