THE SOUTHERN UPLANDS.—The rocks of this region are in the main Silurian, but in the east a belt of Old Red Sandstone runs southwards from Dunbar to the border, and much of Berwickshire is upon the Calciferous Sandstone. In the west there are granitic areas and isolated basins of Triassic rocks. The lower elevation and less rigorous climate of the Uplands cause them to compare favourably with the Highlands. The hills are generally covered with grass to their summits, and the percentage of land used for grazing purposes is high. In Peebles, Selkirk, Dumfries, and Kirk cudbright, for example, over 80 per cent. of the land is in pasture or permanent grass, and the whole region constitutes one of the great sheep-raising districts of the United Kingdom, containing nearly one-tenth of the total number of sheep therein. Over the greater part of the Southern Uplands, indeed, there is, on an average, one sheep to each acre of pasture land. Cattle are not raised except in Wigtown and Kirkcudbright, where the lower elevation of the land and the heavier rainfall lead to the growth of pasture more suitable for cattle than for sheep. Arable farming is generally
restricted ; oats, the chief cereal grown, is cultivated mainly in the river valleys and in the Triassic basins, both of which are frequently covered with alluvium, and on the lower lands of the Old Red Sandstone and Calciferous Sandstone of Roxburgh and Berwick.
The woollen industry is more centralised in the Southern Uplands than in any other part of Scotland. This is due in part to the large supplies of wool at hand, and in part to the abundance of water, both for power and for cleansing purposes. The chief towns engaged are Hawick, Galashiels, Jedburgh, Selkirk, Peebles, and Inner leithen. The manufacture of tweeds of various kinds is the principal branch of the industry pursued in this region.