My heart in voluntary chains....
Has she not all the charms that lie
In Gordon’s blush and Lockhart’s eye;
The down of lovely Haya’s hair,
Killochia’s shape or Cockburn’s air?’...
1723.
This affords us some idea of the beauties who gave its first attractions to the Assembly.
Nov. 9.
As a symptom of a good tendency, it is pleasant to notice at this date the establishment of a Society for Improving in the Knowledge of Agriculture, which proposed to hold quarterly general meetings in Edinburgh. The Marquis of Lothian, the Earl of Kinnoull, Lord Elibank, John Campbell, Esq., Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Sir George Dunbar of Mochrum, Sir Alexander Hope of Kerse, Mr Lumsden of Innergellie, Mr John Murray, one of the Clerks of Session, and Ronald Campbell of Balerno, W.S., are enumerated as amongst the constituent members.[[587]] The Society in a short time comprehended three hundred of the principal landholders of Scotland. The centre and animating spirit of the fraternity is understood to have been a young Galloway gentleman, Robert Maxwell of Arkland, who about this time took a lease of the farm of Clifton-hall, near Edinburgh, and was there disposed to make experiments in improved husbandry.
The Improvers, as they were called, from the very first shewed a spirit of activity. In September 1724, we hear of them as being about to publish a book upon the fallowing of ground, the method of ordering ground for grass-seeds, the winning and cleaning of flax, and rules for bleaching linen cloth. At the same time, they patriotically entered into a resolution to discourage the use of smuggled foreign spirits by their personal example, and to use means for promoting the manufacture of spirits from native products.[[588]]