Read it through once

There is a most fascinating account in Dr. Singer's work of a strong man's difficulties in starting reasonable agriculture in Dumfriesshire about the year 1785. This was Patrick Miller, of Dalswinton. (It was on Dalswinton Loch that he tried the very first steamboat.) "When I went to view my purchase, I was so much disgusted for eight or ten days that I then meant never to return to this county. A trivial accident set me to work, and I have in a great manner resided here ever since.... I have now gone over all of this estate, and this I have done without the aid of a tenant.... I need not inform you that the first steps in improvement are draining when necessary, inclosing sufficiently, removing stones, roots, rubbish of every kind, and liming.... These operations cost me, I reckon, about £11 per acre upon an average; and I lay my account with being repaid all my expenses by the first three crops, but at any rate by the fourth. When the land which I make arable will give at least (if brought from a state of nature) twenty times the rent when I began to improve it."