ANDERSON, JAMES, LL.D. (1739-1808). A Scotch writer on political economy and agricul ture. He was born at the village of Hermiston. near Edinburgh, and lost both his parents when very young, so that the management of a large farm, which had been in the possession of the family for a long time, devolved upon him. Rec ognizing the practical importance of a knowledge of chemistry to a farmer, he attended the chem istry class in the University of Edinburgh. and brought the results of his study to bear on his profession. He invented, at an early period of life, the small two-horse plow without wheels, commonly called the Scotch plow, which is generally admitted to have been one of the most useful improvements of agricultural implements ever introduced. When only twenty-four years old he went to Aberdeenshire, where lie rented a large moorland farm of 1300 acres. Here he re mained for a considerable time, devoting his leisure hours to writing upon agriculture. His first attempt was a series of essays upon plant ing, which, under the signature of "Agricola." be contributed to the Edinburgh Weekly Magazine. In 1780 the University of Aberdeen bestowed on him the degree of doctor of laws. In 1784, on account of his pamphlet, entitled Encouragement of the National Fisheries, lie was engaged by the Government to make a survey of the western coast of Scotland, with special reference to that object. He next began. in 1791, the publication
of a periodical called The Bee, which was con tinued for three years. In 1797 lie went to Lon don, where he pursued his literary occupations with such intense assiduity that his health grad ually gave way. He died on October 15, 1808. Anderson well deserves a place in any record which details the remarkable advances made by Scotland in agriculture and other sources of wealth in the latter half of the eighteenth cen tury. llis Bre was the type of many periodical miscellanies of a popular nature, mingling in struction with entertainment, which have since been published. He also published: An Inquiry Into the Nature of the Corn Laws, With a View of the Corn Bill Proposed for Scotland (1777); Observations on the Means of Inciting a Spirit of National Industry (1777); An Account of the Present State of the Hebrides -(1785) ; Observa tions on Slarcry (1789) ; Recreations in Agri cullune. Natural History, Arts, and Miscellaneous Literature, 0 volumes (1799-1802). Several of the doctrines of later economists, notably the Picardian theory of rent, are foreshadowed in Anderson's writings.