Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brown, Robert (1757-1831)
BROWN, ROBERT (1757–1831), agricultural writer, born in East Linton, Haddingtonshire, entered into business in his native Village, but soon turned to agriculture, which he carried on first at West Fortune and afterwards at Markle, where he practised several important experiments. He was an intimate friend of George Rennie of Phantassie. While Rennie applied himself to the practice of agriculture, Brown Wrote on the science. He published a ‘View of the Agriculture of the West Riding of Yorkshire,' 8vo, 1799, and a ‘Treatise on Rural Affairs,’ 2 vols. 8vo, 1811, and wrote many articles in the Edinburgh ‘Turner’s Magazine,’ of which he was editor for fifteen years. Some of these articles have been translated into French and German. He died at Drylaw, East Lothian, on 14 Feb. 1831, in his seventy-fourth year.
[Anderson's Scottish Nation, i. 395; Irving's Eminent Scotsmen, 41; Gent. Mag. 1831, vol. ci. pt. ii. p. 647.]