this aspect of the situation ought to be kept prominently in
view, there are other factors of the problem which must not be overlooked.
In the Middle Ages the district of country known as the Borders must have
presented a very different appearance from what it does at the close of
the 19th century. The Merse, which is now, for the most part, in a high
state of cultivation, and capable of bearing the finest crops, was then in
a comparatively poor condition, looked at from an agricultural point of
view. The soil in many places was thin, poor, and marshy. Drainage was
unknown, and the benefits accruing from the rotation of crops, and the
system of feeding the soil with artificial manures, so familiar in these
days of high farming, were then very inadequately appreciated. Perhaps an
exception to this statement ought to be made in favour of the land held
and cultivated by the great religious houses, such as Melrose, Jedburgh,
and Kelso. The tenants on these lands enjoyed special privileges and
immunities, and were thus able to prosecute their labour not only with
more skill, but with a greater certainty of success. It is sometimes said
that the monks knew where to pitch their camps; that they appropriated to
their own use and benefit the fairest and richest parts of the country;
but, as Lord Hailes very pertinently remarks, "When we examine the sites
of ancient Monasteries, we are sometimes inclined to say with the vulgar,
that the clergy in former times always chose the best of the land, and
the most commodious habitations, but we do not advert, that religious
houses were frequently erected on waste grounds, afterwards improved by
the art and industry of the clergy, who alone had art and industry."[13]
The land held by these houses was cultivated on more or less scientific
principles. "Within the precincts of the wealthier abbeys," says Skelton,
"an active industrial community was housed. The prescribed offices of the
church were of course scrupulously observed: but the energies of the
society were not exclusively occupied with, nor indeed mainly directed to,
the performance of religious duties. The occupants of the monasteries wore
the religious garb; but they were road-makers, farmers, merchants,
lawyers, as well as priests.... The earliest roads in Scotland that
deserved the name were made by the Monks and their dependents; and were
intended to connect the religious houses as trading societies with the
capital or nearest s