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NOTES AND SKETCHES
ILLUSTRATIVE OF
NORTHERN RURAL LIFE
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
AND SKETCHES
ILLUSTRATIVE OF
NORTHERN RURAL LIFE
EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY
BY THE AUTHOR OF
JOHNNY GIBB OF GUSHETN
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EDINBURGH DAVID DOUGLAS
1877
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PRINTED AT THE FREE PRESS OFFICE,
PREFACE.
THE NOTES AND SKETCHES of which the present small volume consists have not been written upon any systematic plan. The nucleus of the whole was a paper read several years ago before an audience of decent country folks, who, it was thought, might listen with some interest to matters connected with the social and industrial life of those who had preceded them, and lived under conditions as to occu- pation and the daily round of duty, corresponding as nearly as might be with their own. The object in view then met with at least the'amount of success that had been expected ; and the paper with variations — or rather, perhaps, part of it with additions — was, at intervals, repeated to other similar audiences. And thus the essay grew in bulk. The style is admittedly not altogether that which would have been adopted had publication been in view at the outset, the paper having been shaped mainly to suit the original pur- pose for which the materials were gathered. The sources of information were various, and are generally indicated in the text. Of the books chiefly consulted a list has been given in the Appendix (1) in preference to an excessive multiplication of foot notes. And it occasionally happens
VI PREFACE.
that a statement made, or an opinion expressed, is the result of a comparison of two or more authorities rather than the unqualified averment of a single individual.
In acknowledging his obligations to several friends who have supplied information on particular points, the author feels it right to say that he has been specially indebted to Mr. Alexander Cruickshank, M.A., whose unwearied in- dustry in the collection of facts and statistics is not more marked than his unselfish readiness to make his stores of knowledge available to others.
The sketch of a twelve oxen plough, which forms the frontispiece, is from the skilful and accurate pencil of Mr. Andrew Gibb, F.S.A., Scot. ; and was taken from the specimen in Marischal College Buildings mentioned at page 33. The beam remained entire at date of drawing ; the stilts, &c , had to be somewhat helped out from the parts of them still extant, and a certain measure of tra- ditional knowledge. And as the plough is drawn to scale, readers interested in such matters, and who care to do so, will be able to compare its size and the proportion of parts with those of the improved plough of the present time.
ABERDEEN, April, 1877.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER. PAGE.
I. INTRODUCTORY — STAGNATION OF AGRICULTURE DURING
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 1
II. TOPOGRAPHICAL AND SOCIAL, 7
III. RURAL OCCUPATION— OLD LAND MEASURES, . . 13
IV. CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL, 1700-1800, ... 19
V. FIRST IMPROVERS —AN EARLY AGRICULTURAL ESSAY, . 24
VI. IMPLEMENTS OF THE FARM — THE TWAL OWSEN PLOUGH, 32 VII. RESULTS OF CULTIVATION— PERIODS OF FAMINE, . 41
VIII. THE BAD HARVEST OF 1782 — EFFECTS IN TOWN AND
COUNTY OF ABERDEEN, 48
IX. LIVE STOCK — EARLY IMPROVERS — HIGHLAND REIVERS, 60
X. LIVE STOCK— CATTLE DEALING AND DROVING, . . 68
XI. COUNTRY FAIRS — THEIR ORIGIN AND CHARACTER, . 77
XII. ROADS AND ROAD-MAKING— STATUTE ' LABOUR— FIRST
TURNPIKES, 83
XIII. IMPROVED LOCOMOTION — THE EDINBURGH FLY —
SCORGIE'S CARAVAN, 92
XIV. EARLY AGRICULTURAL IMPROVERS IN ABERDEEN AND
KINCARDINESHIRES, 101
XV. CHARLES RACKET OF INVERAMSAY, . . . .108 XVI. AN AGRICULTURAL TOUR— ANDREW WIGHT, SURVEYOR—
DR. JAMES ANDERSON, 116
XVII. DOMESTIC LIFE AND SOCIAL HABITS — DRESS — FOOD —
DRINK 127
XVIII. DOMESTIC INDUSTRIES AND OUT-DOOR LABOUR, . . 134
Vlll CONTENTS.
CHAPTER. PAGE.
XIX. THE MILL AND THE MILLER — THIRLAGE— FETCHING
HOME THE MILLSTONE— MULTURES, . . . .146 XX. CRAFTSMEN, ITINERANT AND OTHER— JOCK YOUNG
AND TIB DOO, 154
XXI. VAGRANT LIFE— FLETCHER OF SALTOUN's OPINIONS- TIBBIE CAMPBELL, 162
XXII. POPULAR AMUSEMENTS— COCK-FIGHTING— FOOT-BALL—
WAD-SHOOTING, 172
XXIII. SMUGGLING, LOWLAND AND HIGHLAND — PHILIP KEN-
NEDY THE SMUGGLER — MALCOLM GILLESPIE THE GAUGER, 182
XXIV. THE PROPHET OF BETHELNIE — STATE OF MEDICAL
PRACTICE— SUPERSTITIOUS BELIEFS, ... . .192
XXV. THE KIRK-SESSION AND ITS DUTIES — LAYING A GHOST —
TIBBIE MORTIMER AND GEORDIE WATT, ... 200 XXVI. IN CONCLUSION — SUMMARY, SOCIAL, MORAL, AND
RELIGIOUS, 208
APPENDIX, . .215
NOTES AND SKETCHES,
ILLUSTRATIVE OF
NOETHEEN EUEAL LIFE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY.
INTRODUCTORY GENERAL STAGNATION OF AGRICULTURE
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURT.
IN the annals of Scottish agriculture, and specially of agriculture as it concerned that limited district in the north-eastern part of Scotland to which the jottings that follow will be chiefly confined, the eighteenth century was, throughout almost its whole course, a period of remarkable stagnation. It opened inaus- piciously, in so far as the close of the preceding century had been marked by a series of very ungenial seasons, which brought with them disastrously deficient harvests, and want of food, amounting in many parts to absolute famine. The method of tillage, too, had seen no im- provement from time immemorial ; and as a natural consequence of this, the land, even in ordinary seasons, had in many cases come to yield not more, but less than it had yielded in the time that had gone before. The system pursued was one of exhaustion, and the cultivated part of the soil was to a large extent getting quite worn out. The native cattle were small, ill-grown animals ; and they were correspondingly ill fed.
The spirit of enterprise was not yet abroad. For the
first thirty years of the century, that is from 1700 to
1730, "the medium price of lands sold in the county
of Aberdeen did not," we are told, " exceed sixteen
2
2 Notes and Sketches.
years' purchase of the then low rents." It was not always that the lairds could find tenants willing to " keep in the rigs " at a merely nominal rent, until resort was had to the practice of stocking farms as occasion required on " steelbow," a technical term, the signification of which was that the landlord provided a " stocking " of cattle, corn, and implements, and the tenant became hound to return to him articles equal in quantity and quality at the end of his lease, if he could not free himself sooner. A man, if he were so minded, might readily obtain a "tack " on very easy terms, so far as a money or other payment was concerned \ and that tack to last not for his own lifetime only, but for the period of one or two lives thereafter of such persons as he chose to name.
And small in amount as the money payments to rental were, they were not always, nor indeed generally, made off the produce of the land. It was chiefly through the manufacture of home-spun cloths, and the knitting of stockings for exportation that money came into the hands of the smaller tenants, sub-tenants, and cottar folks ; and it was chiefly through them that it reached both the principal tenant and the proprietor, other sources of revenue hardly existing for either, in so far as local industry was concerned.
The roads they had were roads only by courtesy. Wheeled vehicles were scarcely known, and would have been but little serviceable if they had been more plentiful. The best frequented lines of road were not much else than mere tracks, that had taken their form from the hoof-marks of the cattle that traversed them ; a few stones being sometimes roughly thrown into the bottom of a soft bit, forming a kind of rude causeway, sometimes not. And thus came the story of a certain man and his mare. As he plodded along, driving the animal before him, with the pack saddle on her back, the wary beast boggled at a particular part in the road, where she had " laired " on a previous occasion,
Introductory. 3
and fairly refused to go on. But the mare had over- looked the fact that it was now in the drought of summer, whereas it had formerly been raw winter. And her master, failing to persuade her that it was safe to hold on her way, exclaimed " Wae- worth ye, beastie ; yer memory's a hantle better than your jeedgment."
The people dwelt almost of necessity much amongst themselves, living in a simple, homely style, on the produce of their own cultivation. Observant strangers, in speaking of diversities in manners, and style of speech, among the common people, professed to note specific differences, if not between the inhabitants of one parish and the inhabitants of another, certainly between those of one district and those of other districts in the same shire ; and it might be, in some instances, not half-a-dozen miles apart. The state of matters was not unfavourable to the growth of certain virtues, such as neighbourliness, social sympathy, and the like. And along with these there was almost necessarily contract- edness of view and lack of the spirit of progress. It was equally natural that there should exist a consider- able tinge of superstitious feeling, manifesting itself in such forms as the prevailing beliefs in fairies, ghosts, witches, and water kelpies, as well as in a sort of character who seems to have held a midway place between the fully developed warlock, who had his commission directly from the Prince of Darkness, and the seer, or person originally gifted, more or less, with superhuman power which enabled him to cope with certain bodily ailments and various other of the ills that afflict humanity.
Among the peasantry generally, as indeed amongst other classes of society during the same period, religious feeling was in a rather dormant state. The prevailing sentiment was pretty much that which, at a later era, came to be described by the term " moderate," under- stood in its worst sense. The " Seceder," when, in due time, lie became an existing entity, here and there, was
4 Notes and Sketches.
ordinarily regarded, and described as a pestilent fanatic simply ; the " Missionary who in his turn was held in similar repute, did not come on the scene till a later date. It is not very easy, and might not be altogether wise, to pronounce an explicit judgment on the social morality of the period, comparatively viewed. In the north-eastern part of Scotland the great religious move- ments that accompanied and followed the Reformation, down to the Revolution of 1688, did not pervade the commonalty to the same extent, nor stir their feelings to a like depth, as in districts further southward. How far this may have been significant of, or have tended to promote, obtuseness of moral feeling in a comparatively rude state of society, we do not profess to say. But in so far as local records lead us, there does not at any rate appear to be much ground to believe that the social morality of the eighteenth century was in many of its phases of a higher or purer type than that of the century that has followed it.
By the middle of the eighteenth century, and even a little before it, the subject of improvement in agricul- ture had engaged the attention of men of intelligence ; chiefly men of some position, who, while they had a direct interest in the subject as landed proprietors, were in several cases also actively engaged in professional life or in commerce. Some of these to advanced theorising added successful practice in such matters as turnip cultivation and the establishment of a rotation of crops ; and notably also in the planting of timber trees. But it took long time till their example, in the matter of improved husbandry, was generally followed by the tenants, who were, as a rule, equally devoid of means and of the spirit of enterprise. Prejudice in favour of the old system and against the new was strong, too ; and in some cases manifested itself in direct attempts to obstruct or defeat efforts toward improvement. Nor need we be altogether surprised at this. The time had not long gone by, when the highest agricultural wisdom
Introductory. 5
merely sought to conserve the experience of the past as a creed for the present, and a guide in the future.
And the changes mooted must have seemed exceed- ingly revolutionary. It was not at an early date in the century, hut towards the latter part of it — somewhere between the years 1770 and 1780 — that a decent woman in the district of Garioch, in Aberdeenshire, found her- self left a widow, with two sons coming toward man's estate. The family had cultivated the same farm for several generations, perfectly contented with their lot. It was a good farm ; but under a constant succession of cereal crops, with no variation except from oats to here every third or fourth crop, even good " intoon" land did not improve ; and now the elder son and heir to the "tack" — like a headstrong young man, and disregard- ing the example of his seniors — would follow the new fashion of husbandry, which some of the neighbouring lairds had begun to practise. His mother was sadly distressed at the idea ; but what availed it that she had the sympathy of her younger and more timorous son if the other would have his way ; his latest extravagance was the determination to apply lime-shells as a quicken- ing manure to the exhausted and inert " rigs." The perplexed widow could only send for a neighbour farmer of acknowledged sagacity and prudence to de- cide what ought to be done. The neighbour came, duly took note of what was going on, and, seeing the hopelessness of the case, proceeded to discharge his office of counsellor faithfully ; and of course, very adversely to the youthful improver, winding up with this deliverance — " Weel, 'oman, I dinna believe that that loon '11 halt till he herry ye oot at the door, an' syne gae to the sodgers." The result of this " finding" was that the hot-headed young man threw up his birth- right and was paid off with the sum of £30 sterling, his cannier brother assuming the office of farmer in his stead. The wilful young man did not go to the soldiers, it may be said, but betook himself to the county town
6 Notes and Sketches.
for the purpose of acquiring as perfectly as he could the handicraft of the blacksmith, then in a rather primitive state in country districts. And having fairly mastered his business at a somewhat mature stage of his life, he set up his " smiddy," building his fire wholly of coals in place of home-made charcoal, and otherwise prosecuting his calling in accordance with his own advanced notions : although it was not he, but his son, w7ho followed in succession to him in the same business, whose services came to be in repute in the first quarter of the present century as the only black- smith over a wide district who understood, and could, with his own hand, fit up all the iron work of the thrashing mill and winnowing machine, then coming into general use, and if need were of the " meal mill" as well.
Generally, the latent energies of the people, which in the early part of the eighteenth century had been starved down by the meagre style in which physical life was sustained on the one hand, and the discourage- ment to enterprise found in the existence of heritable jurisdictions and the repressive fiscal system of the time on the other, had been only partially stirred at its close. Old customs ; old habits of life, thought, and speech ; antiquated implements, and obsolete modes of operation still kept their place with a wonderful tenacity ; and the march of improvement, clogged as it was by sundry extraneous impediments, the weight of which we have difficulty under our greatly altered con- ditions in realising, was yet but slow and halting.
C H A P T £ E II.
TOPOGRAPHICAL AND SOCIAL ABERDEENSHIEE POLL
BOOK A PICTURE FROM IT HEATHER AND DUB
BUILDINGS — AN OLD FASHIONED HAMLET.
FOR the purpose of arriving at a reasonably distinct notion of our country districts in their general features a century or a century and a-half ago, we shall do well to bear in mind that, along with the prevailing paucity of passable roads and absence of bridges on the larger streams, much of the surface of the land remained in its natural state. Cultivation was more picturesque than systematic in its developments ; bogs, " mosses," and marshes continued undrained, covering in the aggregate a greater extent of the superficies of the country than it is easy now to realise. Natural forest grew in some places now bare enough of trees, but thousands of acres of the most valuable timber-land planted in the latter half of the eighteenth century had, prior to that date, produced little but stunted heather and clumps of broom.
If we go on to inquire how the rural population were distributed and how they were occupied, the contrast between the life of the people then, and what it has become since, is found to very marked. There is perhaps no county in Scotland in which materials fitted to illustrate this point are more abundant than in Aber- deenshire. By the aid of the Poll Boole* alone, and a
* The " List of Polable Persons within the shire of Aberdeen," printed by the gentlemen of the county in 1842, with the sanction of the Spalding Club, and under the editorial care of Dr. John Stuart, from MS. in the possession of General Gordon of Cairness, is almost unique in its way. In the year 1693, and again in 1695, a poll-tax was imposed by the Government of the time on all adults, for the purpose of paying off arrears due to the army, &c. The tax consisted of 6s. Scots per head, on each grown-up person, male
8 Notes and Sketches.
certain measure of local knowledge, the attentive topo- graphic student might readily call up to the mind's eye quite a distinct picture of any given locality. He would be able not only to form an estimate, very nearly correct, of the actual population of any particular parish 180 years ago; but could also ascertain how that population was employed, and how it was located — the forms of occupation corresponding to a great extent with those which had obtained for some hundreds of years, as we shall afterwards see. He would find the Poll List for the parish headed by the laird and his family and servants ; then, apart from them, the tenants and sub-tenants, with generally a group, more or less numerous, under some principal tenant, of cottars and their wives, of " grassrnen" and they? wives ; and occasionally a " lone" woman or two in a " mailt house." Such was the more specifically farm establishment in which the relation of the various members of the small community to each other were readily intelligible. At the next place we have the hamlet. Here were congre- gated sundry minor farmers, along with the weaver or "wabster," and the tailor and smith, each of whom usually had his croft or piece of land to till, and his " lair" in the moss to furnish him with fuel. The two latter, important enough functionaries in their re- spective spheres, do not figure so frequently in the Poll Lists as we, with our modern notions, might expect. The people were not given to variety in " changeable suits of apparel" to the like extent that their descendants are. The common male dress consisted chiefly of coarse
and female, and 6s. additional if the man had a trade, such as that of a tailor or smith. And if he had property he had to pay a fortieth part of its value ; while if he chose to call himself a "gentleman," his poll was £3 Scots. Pretty stiff all this no doubt, considering the value of money at the time ; and so appa- rently thought those immediately concerned, for it was with great difficulty they could be got to pay the poll-tax. The Poll Book gives complete lists of the adult persons in each parish. Compre- hensive as was the poll-tax of 1696, it produced in Aberdeenshire only the sum of £28,148 7s. Id. Scots, or £2,345 13s. 7d. sterling.
Topographical and Social. 9
woollen, home-spun, and home tailored, with a scanty supply of linen, and thus comparatively little professional tailoring was needed. As for the blacksmith, with scarcely a particle of iron in the plough or any other farm implement, and no horse shoeing to speak of — even where he was capable of doing it, which was not always the case — he could meet the wants of a very wide district. It was necessary, indeed, that he should do so ere he could find employment ; and, in some cases, the smith had his " sucken" bound to attend his smiddy just as the miller, who had his place on every laird's land, had his " bun' sucken" up to a much later date — the minister of a Highland parish, indeed, states that by an " immemorial assessment," the smiths in his region were paid in meal by the farmers, they being in some cases also entitled to " the head of every cow slaughtered in the parish." At the hamlet, too, we should find the "chapman" or " pack-merchant," a very im- portant member of the trading community in those days ; who could indeed have commanded a good deal more of ready cash, in most cases, than the ordinary class of farmers could. The " stocks" of individual chapmen are valued in the Poll Lists, in some cases, at as high a figure as 500 merks ; and in a few instances at even more than that ; and taking into account the relative value of money, 500 merks then was probably quite as large a capital, relatively, as many dealers in soft goods can boast of now who exhibit their wares by the medium of a grand shop front, in place of undoing the pack on the old kitchen "deece." In addition to the classes named, the " herd" figures pretty regularly in the lists. He was not seldom a grown-up person of the male sex; perhaps some one who had been lamed of a hand or arm, or who was of more or less de- ficient intellect. And his mode of living was apt to be dependant and precarious ; " herd in summer, but begs his meat in winter," and "herd on charity, his winter maintenance being gratis," are definitions of this official that repeatedly occur. In any case the " herd" was an
10 Notes and Sketches.
indispensable functionary. And we now and then find in the lists such people as the " tinkler," the " homer," the "pewterer," and more rarely the "pyper;" designa- tions which sufficiently explain the occupations of those who bore them.
Let us attempt to sketch the general features in the outward aspect of one of these hamlets, or " clachans," as they were called in the Highlands. The site of the ham- let had at first been determined, perhaps, by the presence of a gushing spring of " caller " water, or the vicinity of some " wimplin burnie ;" or by the fertility of the soil at that particular spot ; for men did not then ordinarily resort to such artificial means as the use of the suction pump to supply them with one of the essentials of life, nor did they contemplate setting themselves deliberately down to reclaim barren moors and hillsides for the sake of the other. They rather chose those situations where it was likeliest that bread would be given them without extra toil, and where their water would be sure so long as perennial fountains, fed in hills and heights, should seek the gladsome daylight where undulating hollows and rifts in earth's surface allowed it. It thus came to pass that the hamlet, in respect of site, had frequently a fair share cf the elements of natural beauty ; and in time, these came usually to be en- hanced by the presence of some goodly trees clustering about the place.
The walls of the straw-thatched cottages or huts were composed, in the upper part at least, of " feal " or turf; or it might be " heather and dub," or mud and straw. The roofing " cupples," firmly embedded in the walls at bottom, were fastened with wooden pins a-top to a short cross bar, the roof-tree extending from end to end of the house over this bar, and between the points of the cupple legs. Stout binders, formed of saplings sawn up the middle, were placed horizontally down the rib of the roof, and over these again trans- versely the " watlin," consisting of smaller sticks split
Topographical and Social. 11
with a wedge. The "watlin," which, with the cupple legs and binders, was quite visible from the interior, carried the " divots," and these latter the " thack," ordinarily fastened on with " strae rapes." Each house consisted of a " but " and a " ben," with little variation in the character or extent of accom- modation embraced.
In certain districts the style of building described was known as " Auchenhalrig," from its having been first used at a place of that name in Morayshire. Of the Auchenhalrig walls and the mode of constructing them, a detailed description informs us that : — " This work is built of small stones and mud, or clay, mixed with straw. The proportions of these materials required to make a rood of thirty-six square yards are . . . about thirty cart loads of stones, ten cart loads of clay or mud, and twenty-four stones weight of good fresh straw." The straw and mud being properly worked together, " twenty-two inches are sufficient thickness for a wall of seven feet high — if higher, they should be two feet thick — carried up perpendicularly the same as other walls, and care should be taken never to build more than two or three feet in height in any one part in the same day ; if raised more, the wall is apt to swell, for which there is no remedy but to pull it down and rebuild." These walls were " equal to the weight of any roof commonly put on mason work," and would, " when properly built, and kept well under thatch, last for more than a century."
Here then, in our hamlet, we have a number, varying from four or five to a dozen, of these homely yet toler- ably comfortable houses, with their walls of rude " concrete" — some with their adjuncts of barn and byre —planted down in a miscellaneous sort of way, as if they had dropt from the clouds, or been scattered broadcast over the knoll by Titanic hands. A winding road, or track rather, partly fenced in by round-headed " feal dykes," not in the best state of repair, leads up to the
12 Notes and Sketches.
hamlet. This road expands into " the toon loan," and loses itself somewhere about the " head of the toon " at this end ; most likely it loses itself at the other end among " the rigs outbye ;" or, at farthest, about the margin of the "moss," where peats, or more likely " sods " only, are dug as fuel for the community. About the place we find here and there an exceedingly rustic sort of garden. In these " yards," which occur in no regular order — are so placed, in fact, that a stranger could hardly guess from the position of any one of them to which of the indwellers it belonged — may be found, besides certain useful vegetables, as " kail," green or red, and " syboes," a few old fashioned herbs and flowers. Some clusters of rich -scented honeysuckle, a plant of hardy southernwood, peppermint, and worm- wood ; with, mayhap, also a slip or two of " smeird docken," the sovereign virtues of whose smooth green leaves, in respect of sore fingers or broken shins, com- mend it to careful consideration. And, as already indicated, in almost every case we find trees about the hamlet. A few ashes about the loan head, some rough scrubby elder (or ' ' bourtree ") bushes about the corners of the gardens, and, it may be, a plane-tree enriching the scene with its mass of • dark-green foliage. Then, in some favoured corner there is the rowan tree, or possibly a pair of these growing side by side like twin sisters with their arms interlaced. They have yielded many a slip for crosses to put above the byre-door, on Kood even, to fend the bestial from " uncanny fowk." For, as we know,
Rowan tree and red thread, Keep the witches fae their speed.
Such, in a general way, was the outward aspect of the hamlet and its surroundings.
CHAPTER III.
RURAL OCCUPATION — OLD LAND MEASURES — THE PLOUGH- GATE AND DAVOCH — EARLY LAND LAWS EMANCIPATION
OF THE NATIVI OR SERFS REMAINS OF EARLY OCCUPA- TION IN SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.
IN early notices of agricultural matters, we now and again stumble upon such expressions relative to the measurements of land as " oxgate," " ploughgate," " forty-shilling land," and somewhat more rarely, " davoch." By the learned industry of Mr. Cosmo Innes, it has been settled " beyond reasonable doubt," that an oxgate meant 1 3 acres. A ploughgate consisted of 104 acres — it and the forty-shilling land being equivalents — and the davoch was " as much as four ploughs could till in a year."* There was, too, the " husband land," which consisted of 26 acres, being the extent of land held by a single husbandman. Each husbandman furnished two oxen to the common plough, and, with the four pairs thus supplied, the ploughgate, which was a joint occupancy, was tilled. This principle of joint holdings, which found its extreme development in the "run rig" system, where two tenants cultivated alternate ridges on the same field, was well fitted to breed difficulties in the practical business of cultivation ; and so the overlords had rules of " good neighbourhood " established, under which the several tenants were bound to perform their respective shares of the farm labour at the sight of " birley men " chosen by themselves.
* Strathbogie was of old divided into forty-eight davochs, each containing as much as four ploughs could till in a year. (Antiq. Shires, vol. IV.) Hence the phrase " the aucht-an'-forty dauch."
14 Notes and Sketches.
There are examples as early as the 1 3th century * of a land tenure, and regulations of the kind just indicated. It has been truly enough said that the Church in those early times was the great cultivator of the land as well as the great improver of the arts. While the rude unlettered barons devoted much of their energies to breaking each other's skulls and despoiling each other's possessions, the monks, so long as they continued to be men of moral lives and simple tastes, promoted husbandry to very good purpose, both as actual cultivators and as good and merciful landlords. The complete agri- cultural economy under and in connection with the monastery would consist, first, of the grange or farm- stead, where were gathered the cattle, implements, stores, and so on, required in the cultivation of the land ; as well as the serfs, or carles, who did the actual work, and their families. The whole would be overlooked by a lay brother, who rendered his accounts to the cellarer of the monastery. Outside the grange there dwelt the " cottars," each with a little bit of land, for which he paid some money rent, with certain services in seedtime and harvest. Beyond these again lived the " husband- men," of whom we have heard, who paid each half a- merk in money rent, with a variety of personal services, including four days' reaping in harvest of the man, his wife, and all their children ; carrying home a certain quantity of peats yearly at the fitting season, and so forth.
The agriculture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was prosecuted with more success and intelli- gence, all things considered, than we are apt to imagine. Various enactments of the Scottish Parliament in the fifteenth century indicate an enlightened and earnest regard for the interests of the cultivator. Leases in some sort date from the fourteenth century ; and we find an Act of James II. (1449) conferring a. tenant
* Rental of Monastery of Kelso, 1200.— Legal Antiq.
Rural Occupation. 15
right adapted to the time in a single comprehensive sentence, thus — " For the safety and favour of the puir pepil that labouris the grunde, that all tenants having tacks for a term of years shall enjoy their tacks to the ish of their terms, suppose the lords sell or analy their lands." Another statute of James I. (1424), titled " Of bigging of ruikes in trees," in respect that the said ruikes " does" great " skaith upon comes," provides for a penalty upon those who fail to despatch the young birds before they have flown from their nests. And there was a statute of the same monarch binding every man " tillan with a pleuch of aucht oxen" to sow a certain quantity of wheat, pease, and beans yearly. Mr. Innes points out, as an interesting and creditable fact in the history of the social life of the rural population, that the amelioration of the condition of the nativi or serfs belonging to the land was accomplished voluntarily during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. "From the thirteenth century, when the serfs must have formed a large proportion of the population ; when gifts of serfs and sales of serfs, and claims of runaway slaves, are of as frequent occurrence as any transactions connected with land — between that century and the end of the fifteenth, hereditary slavery had ceased among us without any legislative act." From the beginning of the sixteenth century, the serf, formerly an important adjunct of the glebe, has disappeared, and we have a free agricultural class ; a rather remarkable result, certainly, to be wrought out naturally and without the intervention of Parliament.
During the sixteenth, seventeenth, and greater part of the eighteenth century, we can trace the general features of the old rural economy. Lord Forbes's rental, of date 1532, quoted by Mr. Innes, shows the land divided into ploughs, each of eight ox:en : the plough- gate being "sometimes let to four tenants, each of whom contributed the work of his pair of oxen to the common plough. These joint tenants were bound to
16 Notes and Sketches.
keep good neighbourhood" in the way already explained in carrying on the common tillage operations. Again, in the rental of the Bishopric of Aberdeen (date 1511), under the conditions of sub-letting on the lands of Fetternear, " a crofter was bound to build one rood of the fold for every cow which he had in the town of his master. The tenants were answerable for the conduct of their crofters in the grazing of their cows and in other things that belonged to good neighbourhood." Prob- ably, as time went on, arid the Church lands had passed to other owners, the prevailing regulations were neither better systematised nor more regularly enforced, but rather the opposite. The mode in which the Church lands were dealt with at the Keforniation did not reflect credit on those more immediately concerned. John Knox, in his History, speaks of some of the " nobilitie" who " had greadelie gripped to the possessionis of the Kirk," and done other selfish deeds despite the rebukes of the preachers ; and in point of fact a number of the ostensible lay adherents of the Eeformation, upon con- veyances from the prelates, or in their office as " com- mendators," unscrupulously seized the temporalities of the Church, and, with equal indecency, turned out the old occupants of the land as they saw fit in order that they might fill their places with a subservient following of their own friends and dependants. These were hardly the men to encourage and foster honest industry in any shape ; and for a time the peaceable and in- dustrious cultivators of the soil, in many cases, suffered not a little injustice and oppression at their hands. Still, in its main features, the agricultural economy of the country seems to have undergone but little change for a very long period. At the earliest date to which we have referred, the different grades in the rural com- munity had recognition ; and their relations to each other, from the landowning class of ecclesiastics, barons, or lairds, and principal occupiers, to the humble cottar, who mainly represented labour, were distinctly under-
Rural Occupation. 17
stood. And so it continued to be up to a time less than a hundred years ago. It was, indeed, left to the enlightened nineteenth century to adopt the principle of segregating classes ; to foster a policy that allowed the tenant occupier to grasp his holding, and too often in selfishly seeking to extend its boundaries, rid himself of all trammels of "good neighbourhood" by pushing the manual tiller of the soil off the manor altogether, even as a cottar occupier.
In the records of a Garioch Kirk-Session, under date 1720, I find an incidental illustration of the rural economy then in operation. Certain neighbours were "delated" to appear before the Session for "breach and prophanation of the Sabbath, by beating and blood- ing on ane other." A principal in the " scandal," on being interrogated, declared that " he had neither beat nor bled any person ;" but that the two sons of his neighbour, who was " possessor of one of the ploughs of Twadam, had that Sabbath morning singled by their father's cattle from the cattle of the other three ploughs, and brought them from the common fold, thorow the midest of his corns, to feed them in places where no cattle were wont to graze ; and that all the cattle of the other three ploughs had broke the fold to come after them ;" whereupon he interposed. Thus far the two sides substantially agreed. A divergence of testimony occurred concerning the precise intentions of the first narrator in the scuffle that ensued between him and one of the young men for possession of a cudgel carried by the latter, he averring that his single object was to " turn the cattle from among his corns," while the two brothers, who had severely pommelled their assailant, asserted that it was to " strick" his opponent " withal." A couple of independent witnesses deponed to the facts, but declined to give an opinion on the merits, whereon the session found them all guilty, and appointed them to be publicly rebuked.
The noticeable point here is the four ploughs working 3
18 Nates and Sketches.
jointly, as we find them at any time during the four hundred and fifty years preceding 1 720, and presumably also the common pasture, with the common fold, wherein each husbandman put his cattle along with cattle belong- ing to the others, each occupier having however his own arable rigs.
Up to a considerably later date the practice of " run rig" cultivation was pursued more or less ; and for its smooth working " good neighbourhood" must certainly have been essential. It was a curious system, and gave scope for queer, and at times amusing results. A good story enough was wont to be told some sixty odd years ago, of two neighbours on a farm in the lower part of Aberdeenshire — Eastertown and Westertown let us say. Their " hyeucks" had "kempit" side by side through the hairst till only one run-rig field was left to " shear." It was gloamin, and the harvest moon beginning to peep over the eastern hills when Wastie descried a form, which he judged to be that of his pawky neighbour Eastie, passing along the head-rig on the skyline, and stooping down at every dozen paces. "Ay, an' ye wud like to hae klyock first," thought "Wastie to him- self as he quietly followed the trail to find that Eastie was with great pains sticking up " a bit knablick stane" at the top of every second rig, the rigs so marked being of course those that belonged to himself. With equal care he lifted each of these marks and transferred it to the next alternate rig, and then slipped leisurely home to bed to await the result next morning. It was precisely as Wastie had anticipated. At the hour appointed, Eastie's " hyeucks" had gone out to take " klyock" by the light of the moon, and so have the pleasure of accomplishing a stolen march on Wastie. They had duly shorn their " stent ;" only that through the small piece of dexterous manipulation of the way marks just mentioned, daylight revealed the fact that it was Wastie who had got " klyock" — not Eastie !
CHAPTEE IV.
CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL, 1700 — 1800 — ORDINARY MODES OF CROPPING AND THE RESULTS.
AN English tourist who visited Scotland in 1702, speaks thus of the general aspect of the country at that date : — " The surface was generally unenclosed ; oats and barley the chief grain products ; wheat little culti- vated ; little hay made for winter, the horses then feed- ing chiefly on straw and oats." " The people of the Lowlands partly depended on the Highlands for cattle to eat, and the Highlanders, in turn, carried back corn^ of which their own country did not grow a suffi- ciency."
In even the best cultivated parts of the south of Scotland, " the arable land ran in narrow slips," with " stony wastes between, like the moraines of a glacier." " The scanty manure was conveyed to the field by manual labour ; and the unpleasant scene has often been attested by English travellers, of the crofter's wife carrying the unseemly burden on her back." " The hay meadow was a marsh where rank natural grasses grew, mixed with rushes and other aquatic plants ; and the sour wet ground not only remained undrained, but was deemed peculiarly valuable from the abundance with which it yielded this coarse fodder."* It has been averred that "nine-tenths of
* The natural meadows of this country may be all comprehended under the denomination of swamps and morasses, of which there are specimens in almost every farm. Formerly these produced the only hay in the country, and they are still, almost exclusively, applied to the same purpose. It was from hay of this kind that
20 Notes and Sketches.
the corn produced in the country was raised within five miles of the coast." This may probably be accepted as rather a loose statement, yet cultivation was mainly confined to the lands that lay along the courses of rivers and streams, while in the interior wide areas of unbroken waste land prevailed exten- sively. It was not till near the end of last century that blackfaced sheep were introduced into the Highlands. The only use previously made of the hill pasture, apart from feeding wild animals, was to feed the small black cattle sent thither during the summer months.
A precise and detailed account of the modes of tillage practised in the north of Scotland toward the close of the seventeenth century occurs in a letter written by Alexander Garden of Troup, and the date of which is 1683.* Mr. Garden, in describing the usual course of husbandry, says — " The husbandman keeps in some of his ground constantly under corne and bear, dunging it every thrie years, and, for his pains, if he reap the fourth corne he is satisfied." That is to say, if he has four returns of the seed sown he is satisfied. This, Mr. Garden informs us, was the " intown." " Our outfields," he says, " when they have been grass four or five years, are plowed up, and letting them lie a summer thus ploughed, we plow them over again, and sow them the next spring ; and in our best outfields if we reap the fourth or fifth corn the first year we are satisfied. Yea, the third is very well thought off." Then he tells us that they took at least three corn crops in succession off the outfield, and if the cattle had been folded upon it before being
the Duke of Cumberland's cavalry were supplied in 1746, when in Aberdeen, on his march to the north, in pursuit of the rebel army. Even this miserable forage was not obtained without much labour ; part of it being furnished from the swamps among the woods of Fetteresso, at the distance of 16 miles, by, at that time, a very bad road. — General View of the Agriculture of Kincardineshire ; by George Robertson. 1807. * Spalding Club Collections in the shires of Aberdeen and Banff.
Cultivation of the Soil. 21
broken up it was considered fit to carry another crop before it required to lie in grass again. The laying out in grass consisted, of course, of merely letting the land alone without ploughing or sowing in a corn crop, till the surface grew green ~4vith whatever species of weeds were indigenous to the soil. A specific descrip- tion, applicable to a somewhat later date, sets forth that when the " outfields" would no longer pay for seed and labour, " they were then allowed to remain in a state of absolute sterility, producing little else than thistles and other weeds, till, after having been rested in this state for some years, the farmer thought proper to bring them again under cultivation, when, from the mode of management before described, a few scanty crops were obtained."
Before adverting to individual views of agricultural improvement, as held by persons taking a prominent interest in the subject, a brief glance at the general state of cultivation during the century may be taken. And it is a curious illustration of the slow rate of pro- gress in those days to find that when the close of the eighteenth century was almost come, though not a few energetic improvers had arisen and set a better example, exactly the same modes of tillage were in almost universal use over a great part of the country, as at the beginning of that century. Of this we have abundant evidence in the pages of the Old Statistical Account of Scotland, begun to be published in 1791, and actually completed in 1798, in twenty volumes, through the heroic perseverance of Sir John Sinclair, by whom it was originated, and its publication super- intended, the reports for the several parishes being drawn up chiefly by the ministers. The detailed testimony of one of these witnesses may be accepted as nearly sufficient ; and we take the statement of the minister of Alford, in Aberdeenshire, who is very definite and copious. Writing in 1795, he says : — " The infield or intown lands are constantly in white
22 Notes and Sketches.
crops, unless where the farm has very little or very bad pasture, and then, perhaps, a ridge or two is left untilled, to throw up the weeds which ages have nourished in it to maintain the farmer's cattle. One third of it is manured regularly with all the dung of one year's gathering ; and thus, in three years, all the infield on a farm has been once dunged." This, it will be observed, is precisely the practice that was followed a hundred years earlier, as detailed by the Laird of Troup. The writer goes on to state that " the infield land is generally an excellent soil, full of manure, but stocked with destructive weeds, of which wild oats and knot-grass are among the worst. The average produce in tolerable seasons will not," he says, " exceed from 4 to 5 bolls per acre." In regard to the management of outfield land, the " most proper way," we are told, was to have it divided into eleven parts which were folded upon in succession. The cropping is thus described : — " In spring oats are sown, and as soon as the crop is off the ground, it is again ploughed for a second, and so on until it has borne five succes- sive crops of oats ; and then it is left five years lea to throw up whatever poor grass such worn out soil will produce. The first two years the grass is as bad as possible, and though during the other three it thickens, yet, even at the best, it gives but a scanty bite to the cattle." As to the grain produce of the outfields, it is said " the first three crops are nearly alike, and will rarely run beyond four bolls per acre on an average ; and for the last two years they dwindl^f down to betwixt two and three, and often less. The produce of the untoathed fields is much inferior in quantity as well as quality ; and, indeed, the return from faughs in grain will seldom defray the expense of labour and seed ; and the farmers are tempted to plough them though it is to their own loss, merely for the sake of the small quantity of straw which they yield."
Another of the' Old Statistical writers speaking of
Cultivation of the Soil. 23
outfield tillage, says, after the land had grown the sixth grain crop in succession, " it was seldom before the fourth year that it got a green surface." The minister of Birse speaks of some portions of the ground having been cropped continuously, with an occasional dunging, without having been allowed " any rest for a century." The minister of a Buchan parish says : — " A rotation of crops is not yet established in this district. While the heritor only plows where he cannot get grass to grow any longer, the tenant some- times plows as long as corn of any kind will grow." Another minister, who had made some inquiry on the subject, got this statement from one farmer — " On my farm there was a field of four acres which, for twenty- five years during my residence there, yielded alternately full crops of grain, viz., beans, peas, and oats, without any manure. I have reason to think my predecessor for five or seven years employed it in the same manner." This rare field always grew a conspicuously rich crop however ; but " another farmer candidly told me," says the writer, " that from twelve bolls of oats which he sowed last crop, there was only produced twenty bolls ; and of crop 1793 he had not three returns." Samples of fields which had grown ten, fifteen, or twenty grain crops in succession with little or no manuring were not confined to a single district, nor to a single county ; for we hear of them in Banff and Kincardineshires, as well as in Aberdeenshire, toward the close of the century. It was in the first named county, and in the parish of Alvah, that fields to which lime had been applied, were reckoned fit to yield from twelve to nineteen crops of oats in succession. And it was to Kincardineshire the old school farmer belonged, who, on being complimented on the good appearance of his crop, said — " It's nae marvel, for it's only the auch- teent crap sin' it gat gweedin' (dunging)." In some of the old leases, it was formally stipulated that " there shall not be more thanjfae crops of oats in succession."
CHAPTER V.
FIRST IMPROVERS—A SMALL SOCIETY OF FARMERS IN BUCHAN— AN EARLY AGRICULTURAL ESSAY.
IT is believed the very first person to introduce agricultural improvements effectively into the north of Scotland was an English lady — Elizabeth Mordaunt —who was married to the eldest son of the Duke of Gordon in 1706, the year before the Union. She was a daughter of the Earl of Peterborough, himself a great improver, and she brought down to the Duke of Gordon's estates " English ploughs, with men to work them, and who were acquainted with fallowing — here- tofore utterly unknown in Scotland." She taught the Morayshire people how to make hay, and set them the example of planting moors and sowing foreign grasses. About ten years later the Earl of Haddington began to plant extensively, and introduced other im- provements, including sowing clover and other grass seeds. Nearly contemporaneous with him was Sir Archibald Grant, second baronet of Monymusk, who writes— " Soon after the Union, husbandry and manu- factures were in low esteem. Turnips raised in fields for cattle by the Earl of Rothes, and very few others, were wondered at. Wheat was almost confined to East Lothian. Enclosures were few and planting very little ; no repair of roads, all bad, and very few wheel carriages."
On July 13th, in the year 1723, there was instituted " the Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland." Its membership included 42 peers and 260 commoners, of whom 4 peers and
First Improvers. 25
25 commoners belonged to Aberdeenshire. This society, which assumed the character of a national institution, published its transactions occasionally for the information of its members. Only seven years later a local society was established, which embraced in its membership a good many names of note, such as those of Alexander Lord Pitsligo, the Hon. Alexander Fraser of Strichen, one of the senators of the College of Justice ; Sir James Elphinstone of Logic ; James Ferguson of Pitfour ; Alexander Garden of Troup ; James Gordon of Ellon ; Ernest Lesley of Balquhain ; George Skene of Skene ; and William Urquhart of Meldrum. The title they appear to have assumed was that of " A small Society of Farmers in Buchan," and an Essay published by them in 1735, which presents in good set terms their notions concerning the main points of practical husban- dry, is somewhat of a curiosity in its way, were it only for the graphic picture it gives of the difficulties the farmer had to struggle with in keeping down weeds when he had not the advantage of green crops to clean the land, but grew cereals year after year. The Essay extends to ten separate Articles, treating of the different crops, and the appropriate cultivation; and varieties of soil, each article being subdivided into several Rules. In their modest preface the authors say that the essay " contains nothing purely specula- tive, but a plain and genuine relation of our practice, as we have learned from tradition, and our own repeated experience, put into method to ease our memories, and for the instruction of beginners."
These worthy men were thus content scrupulously to adhere to the modes of farming they had learnt by " tradition" ; and in place of hunting after novelty or change in the way of alleged improvement, they only sought to stereotype established practice, and put on record well-proved methods for their own convenience and the behoof of posterity. The land, they go on to
26 Notes and Sketches.
say, was divided, in the common course of husbandry, into "bear land, bear root, and awal bear root." They first give rules for the ploughing of the bear land ; a "break" followed by a " clean furrow ;" the latter, which covered in the dung, being given as late as possible — at the end of April or beginning of May — in order to prevent that growth which " infallibly disheartens the field for corn, when it gets footing by ploughing bear land early." The "growth" here spoken of, in other words,' the weeds in the land, formed evidently a serious matter of consideration. And thus, while the farmer is advised to sow immedi- ately after the last furrow, he is also advised to let the newly-sown field lie at first half harrowed, and then cross-harrow it when the seed has begun to take root ; for, say the essayists, when the weeds — " yarrs, skellachs, gules, and others" — begin to spring, "it will be fit to crush them with the harrow." "After the brier blade falls, the corn makes no progress till the stock be formed ; the weeds taking advantage of this delay, advance with incredible celerity, and unless they be crushed at this juncture they soon overtop the brier, and maintain their victory till they render the corn both thin and feeble ; but a judicious management of the harrow will set back the weeds and give the brier, which in that season naturally grows up very quickly, the advantage over them, and having again recovered the former loss, it will preserve its distance to the end."
Harrowing down weeds among the briard, then, is strongly recommended ; and " because they cannot be suppressed at once, they ought to be torn up as oft as they appear until the brier begin to recover after stocking." No method yet tried had proved so effectual with the weeds as this of tearing them up with iron-tined harrows ; " and," say the essayists, " if any one apprehends loss by the harrowing his brier, we do assure him that that scruple is contrary
First Improvers. 27
to experience, several of our own number having followed the above directions with great success."
Thus far of harrowing down weeds among the springing corn. But even the free use of the harrow among the briard was not quite enough at all times. Of course it was when it came to the awal, or second crop after bear, that the contest between the crop and the weeds for possession of the ground became most serious. And then, evidently, it not unfrequently assumed the form of something very like a life-and- death struggle ; became a question, in short, whether the weeds, with which the land was so densely stocked, or the corn was to be the predominant crop. The roots of the weeds " being turned deeper down in ploughing" formed one reason why the bear-root crop " sometimes escapes their clutches. But if they miss the one, the other, to wit, the awal, is sure to feel the weight of their revenge." Our essayists, in speaking of the management of the awal crop, repeat their advice about the use of the harrow among the briard in order to check the weeds ; and after observing that " it will be fit to harrow down the weeds about the time of stocking," they add, " and if, after all, the weeds happen to prevail, it may be eaten up with beasts betwixt the beginning and middle of May." A truly sage advice it may be said ; yet, it was given in all sincerity. For it was the case that the knot-grass and other weeds were often so deeply rooted as to " baffle the harrow, however carefully applied." So say our authorities. And that being the case, " it is very reasonably advised to eat both weeds and briard up with beasts, to bring them upon one level." And this being done, the chances were, we are assured, that the grain would in all probability " soon overtop the weeds."
The essayists give specific directions how this rather nice agricultural operation might be best performed. " The animals that are fittest to be employed in this
28 Notes, and Sketches.
affair," say they, " are young nolt, because they cut cleverly, without disturbing the root, whereas old or ill-toothed beasts very often pull up the brier by the roots. Horses and sheep are not so fit to be put upon this expedition, unless they be carefully kept or tethered upon the field ; for, although their teeth be sharp, yet we evidently observe them to eat the corn and leave the grass untouched, which is directly con- trary to the design ; and this their aversion is probably raised from the roughness of grass in respect of the smooth and sweet blade of corn." " This experiment," it is added, " will no doubt much offend the timorous and unthinking part of mankind ; however, it hath often proven very beneficial both for keeping back the weeds and preventing the lying of corns before they be full."
But even after the awal crop had, by the friendly aid of the harrow and the young nolt's teeth, battled through the initiatory stages, and come off victorious over " yarrs," " skellachs," " sorrel," and all their aiders and abettors, it had yet another enemy to con- tend with — viz., the wild oats, which, while they did comparatively little harm among the two former crops, in the awal, we are told, " do very notable mischief to their neighbour corn ; for the wild grows up much faster, and ripens much sooner than the tame, and thereby exhausts the nutriment thereof. This never misses to render it both weak and thin, and therefore 'tis well worth the owner's pains to endeavour by all means to prevent this imminent danger of his corns, which will in a great measure be done by cropping the wild oats how soon they come out of the hose, who appear always about eight days before the tame. Thus is Providence so kind as to tack that to their nature which is the mean of their own destruction. Any one that is careful may perform this work, with the hook in one hand, and grasp the crops with the other, which will be good entertainment for cows ; or,
First Improvers. 29
if he hath no mind to take the trouble to preserve them, let him fix a sharp-toothed hook in the end of a small pole or hazel rod, and strike them down there- with, which is more expeditious, though less profit- able." But there was a possibility that all these rules — rules which, their authors quietly insinuate, reason and experience alike recommend — might fail of the desired end ; and such contingency was not left out of view. For, it is added, " If a field be so backward that it does not answer by following the foregoing rules, it will be fit to lay it down in grass until it con- tract a body, which will take five years to ly."
It were scarcely profitable to follow the essayists through the detailed rules for tillage applicable to in- field and out-field, and the method of toth-folding, and so on. For the bear crop we note that " Ebb tilling is recommended to retain the dung as near the seed as possible, and the remainder of the mold is to ly in the meantime to contract a body." For the first crop after bear, " Let it be ploughed with competent sap both deep and tight" — the " two good reasons" for the deep furrow being " to bury the grass roots," and " that the rested mold which lay idle underneath last year may appear to act its part." Indeed, the Society, in the case of out-field, at least, seem to have had some vague kind of notion that each succeeding furrow should go a little deeper than the one given the pre- vious year, till, as they say, " the pan" were reached. The " fauch" is justly declared to be " in all respects inferior to dung, seeing it adds no benefit to the soil for the future, but only extorts, as it were,- by vio- lence whatever productive qualities Providence has bestowed upon it." And then they lay down one or two general principles which we may carry along with us ; thus : — " If we look into the common way of managing husbandry, especially in those parts where nature has been less liberal of her favours, we will have just reason to reprove the inadvertancy of some
30 Notes and Sketches.
in bestowing their labour without any prospect of an adequate return, and condemn the inhuman practice of others for wounding so unmercifully the sides of our common mother earth, without ever offering any medicine. There is no excuse can be made to alleviate the severity of this censure, except it be the prevailing humour of landlords in exacting what they possibly can of their dependants, and they, as the phrase is, must put at the rigs. However, it were a far more equal way for masters to allow their fellow- creatures a reasonable subsistence, their lands, in the meantime being improven, as well as greater justice done to their own children, to succeed to a thriving tenantry and well-managed ground. This would be a sure way to raise a more plentiful fortune, and transmit their memory with more honour to posterity, than the heaping up a store of money by those means that have such an affinity to extortion, and seldom enrich the third heir."
One fancies that in these latter sentiments he hears the voice of some nineteenth century radical, rather than that of the aristocratic members of the small society of Buchan farmers of a hundred and forty years ago.
We take a step onward and listen to the advice obtained in a particular case by an ardent improver. About the year 1757, Sir Archibald Grant had ad- dressed a set of queries to the hon. the " Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scot- land," concerning the most advantageous way of managing a field of sixteen acres, said to be " of good black soil," " abundantly dry, or can easily be made so." It had produced clover and ryegrass for three years, but could not be longer pastured. The advice Sir Archibald receives for the treatment of the field — and it is- given in the month of January — is to plough with all convenient speed, " that it may have got three furs betwixt and the latter end of April or
First Improvers. 31
beginning of May." Pease were then to be sown, the object being to manure the field, and when they came to be in full bloom, they were to be pressed flat to the ground with a roller, or in absence of such an implement, with harrows thrown upon their backs, or " an old door may be used." The land was then to be twice ploughed, and sown out with twelve pounds of clover and two bushels of ryegrass seeds to an acre.
CHAPTEK VI.
IMPLEMENTS OF THE FARM — THE TWAL OWSEN PLOUGH — THE SOAM AND TEAM — WOODEN HARROWS AND FIR TETHERS — CURRACHS — THE BOBBIN JOHN.
IN exhibiting the advanced state of Scottish agri- culture at the present day, as compared with the agriculture of last century, one could scarcely find a readier or more effective method of illustration than that of contrasting the implements of the farm then and now. Alongside the two horse swing plough, fashioned of iron, and marked by accurate proportion of parts, and absolutely artistic finish in the workman- ship, we should have to place the large uncouth wooden implement, devised for the draught of eight, ten, or twelve oxen ; with " beam " so disproportionately long, and " stilts " so relatively short, that collision with some big " earth-fast " stone in the opening furrow, really threatened, at times, to throw the hapless plough- man's heels, if not against the seven stars — as a local Munchausen averred, had once happened at the cost of nearly obliterating one of their number from the firmament — certainly, to an elevation, at least equal to that of his head. Against the steam threshing machine, with its complete dressing apparatus, there would stand the primitive flail ; and the equally primitive hand riddle and " wecht," for use in winnowing the corn between the open barn doors by the natural wind of heaven ; and so on through the remaining implements of the farm.
Implements of the Farm. 33
Concerning the twelve oxen plough, Dr. James Anderson, (of whom some particulars are given further on) says : — " The plough itself is beyond description bad ; and it is of so little consequence to perpetuate the memory of what can never be imitated elsewhere, that I shall omit the description of it. I shall only observe that it makes rather a triangular rut in the ground than a furrow, leaving the soil for the most part equally fast on both sides of it, so that if all the loosened earth were stripped from a plowed field, it would remain nearly in this form AAAAA only, it would sometimes happen that a gap would be made in these protuberances." Yet, rude as the plough was and im- perfect its equipments, under the steady persevering pull of the team of great sinewy oxen of six or seven years old, so long as it could be kept in the ground, it made a large if unshapely furrow, turning over or pushing aside a mass of soft earth, and clearing away obstacles, such as " earth fast" stones that stood in the way, aye and until the soam broke or other part of the gearing gave way.
The plough wright, when his services were needed, went to the farm, and if he was an early riser, and his wood looked out beforehand, would contrive to build a plough in sufficient time for the ploughman and "gaudman" to take their team a-field. The imple- ment he had to construct was hardly more elaborate, though it may be safely believed a good deal clumsier, than that which had been used by the Israelites when they dwelt in the Land of Canaan. And certainly it was much inferior in design and material to the plough of the ancient Romans, described by Pliny, as in use in his time. The tools the plough-wright used were a saw, an axe, an adze, and a large forming iron and wimble. The only parts made of iron were the coulter and " sock ; " and the " cheek-rack" or bridle (if such there were). The mould board was of wood, and the frame was kept together chiefly by 4
34 Notes cmd Sketches.
sturdy wooden pins. An expert wright could make three ploughs in a day, working diligently ; and he was paid eightpence to a shilling for each. For wood and workmanship, the plough seldom cost above four shillings ; and the iron furnishings did not exceed that amount, so that the total outlay for a completed implement was under ten shillings.
It was not till the century was pretty well advanced, that iron-tined harrows came to be commonly used. The tines or teeth, as well as the frame work, were of wood : and while oxen were used for the plough, the harrowing was done by horses, as were the carriages needed in connection with the farm. When improv- ing lairds endeavoured to reform the style of the ploughs, and the method of ploughing, they were met by two obstacles. One was " want of experience among country servants in the management of horses ;" the other the fact that the wrights and smiths, in place of adequately imitating the improved ploughs put before them — as those of James Small, the father of the swing plough, on the basis of which others have improved so much — invariably continued to bring them nearer and nearer to their own defective models. And it was with a view to overcome such obstacles that in some cases, along with Small's ploughs, expert ploughmen were also brought from East Lothian to Aberdeenshire, to set an example in working them.
The extinction as an operative agency of the old plough, with its team of ten or twelve oxen, was quite gradual. In 1770, it was still in all but universal use ; twenty years thereafter it had to a certain extent given place to a better fashioned implement and a lighter team, the first modifications of the team being to four pairs of oxen and one pair of horses pulling together, the horses being next to the plough ; then to two pairs of horses in a team, and so on. In Cromar, the Garioch, and other districts of Aberdeenshire, the
Implements of the Farm. 35
" twal owsen" plough was pretty common so late as 1792 ; and in exceptional cases it was in use a few years after the commencement of the present century. The late Dr. Cruickshank, of Marischal College, Aber- deen, remembered seeing such a plough at work in the parish of Culsalmond, so late as the autumn of 1807 ; and it did not go finally out of use in this part of the country till about 1815 or 1816.
A specimen of this cumbrous implement used after 1784, by Mr. Stephen, tenant of Millden, Belhelvie, was exhibited at the Aberdeen Show of the Highland Society in 1858, when its uncouth appearance made it an object of great interest and curiosity to those of the living generation of farmers and ploughmen who were present to inspect it. It was thereafter pre- sented to the authorities of Marischal College by its possessor, Mr. Craighead, presumably for preservation in the Museum. No particular care would seem to have been bestowed on the interesting relic (the only remaining specimen of this particular kind of plough so far as we are aware), until sometime ago it was found to be literally crumbling into dust, and past all hope of staying the progress of decay.
The draught equipment was as primitive as the plough itself. The "soam" already spoken of — an iron chain, fastened to the cheek-rack, or to a simple staple fixed in the beam on the right hand side some distance from the point — ran along between the pairs of oxen all the way to the "fore yoke."* A yoke lay across the necks of each pair of oxen ; and a " bow," consisting of a piece of ash, birch, or willow, bent to the proper shape, surrounded every separate ox's neck. The points of the bows were stuck upward through
* The names of the six pairs of oxen as fully given in Dr. Pratt's Buchan, with illustrative diagram, were — foremost pair, on wyner, and wyner ; second do. on-steer draught, and steer-draught ; 3d do. fore-throck on land and fore-throck in fur ; 4th do. mid-throck on land and mid-throck in fur ; 5th do. hind-throck on land, and hind- throck in fur ; 6th pair, fit on land, and fit in fur.
36 Nates and Sketches.
the yoke, and securely pinned in that position. A " brecham," or pad of dried " sprots," rushes, straw, or strips " tyave" of moss fir roots, intervened between the neck of the ox and the bow, to prevent friction in the draught. The more important animals in the team were the "fit owsen" and the "wyners." Connected with the yoke of the former pair, which, of course, were nearest the plough, was a short series of elongated links, or staffs, for raising or lowering the "soam" according as more or less "yird" was required by the ploughman. And a " fit o' Ian'" ox was not con- sidered fully trained in his function till he had learnt to lower his neck when the ploughman cried " jouk," at such times as he wanted the plough to go a little deeper for the moment. The wyners again occupied an important position, in so far as the turning of the unwieldy team on a moderate width of end-rig depended on their easing the draught off gradually and featly. And then, as the young oxen were always trained in the steer draught immediately behind ' them, it depended chiefly upon the trustworthiness of the veteran wyners that these juniors should be kept steady, and prevented running into untimeous and uncanny escapades, even to the extent of breaking their harness at times, and scampering off from the draught altogether.
A tolerably vivid idea of the harnessing and draught equipments of the time will be obtained, when it is kept in mind that, apart from the plough soam, there was no iron chain ordinarily in use. The " theets," or traces, used in harrowing, were made either of dried " sprots" or rushes, or of twisted fir roots — hempen rope being a little-known commodity. Thin " splits" of fir taken off logs that had been dug up in mosses and twisted into a sort of rope, because they stood wet well without rotting, were " preferred above all others for tethering horses in the field," as well as for draught purposes. " These ropes of a proper
Implements of the Farm. 37
length," we are told, were " sold ready made under the name of fir tethers " ; and, it is added, " when no longer fit to be used as a tether, they are employed as candle fir." For tethering purposes there was also the home made hair rope, the materials of which were supplied from the tails of the cattle.
It is not to be supposed that either the fir or " rash en" traces were capable of sustaining very great tension ; and they were the less severely tried from the fact that the horses were small, potbellied, ill-fed, and conse- quently rather pithless animals. One is not so sure about even the soam, by which the whole eight, ten, or twelve oxen hung on. At any rate the story told of a certain smith, would seem to indicate that his notion of the strain which the welded links ought to be capable of bearing, had not been very enlarged. He had just mended a break in the soam from the Mains farm, and the " herd loon " took his way home therewith from the smiddy. Tired of other modes of conveying his rather onerous burden, the herd took to dragging it after him, when, unluckily the soam snapped again. On being told of this fresh disaster, and discovering the ordeal to which the soam had been subjected by the herd, the smith exclaimed — " Sorra set ye laddie, fat need ye 'a trail' t it !"
The style of work accomplished by the great wooden plough has been already spoken of. The furrow opened was large and uncouth; and in their wide way of talking, the old fellows spoke of the plough- man occasionally turning down a refractory bit, which the rude mould board had failed to lay over " wi' the tap o's shooder." The " rigs" they made were crooked like an elongated S ; and from the practice of " feer- ing" always in the crown of the rig and " gathering " to the same point, the tendency was to pile up the ploughed land in a series of long narrow mounds. And thus it was that when the principle of straight furrows, and level rigs began to have place, the laird
38 Notes mid Sketches.
of Eothney, in Insch, endeavoured to persuade his ploughman to adopt the new mode, only to find him impervious to reasoning and obstinately determined on adhering to his old practice. At this the laird lost temper and turned away with the exclamation, " Augh min ! It's been some confoun'it idiot like you 't's cairn't up the hill o' Dunnydeer there !"
The ordinary carriages of the farm were accom- plished by means of "currachs" or creels of wicker work — hung from a " crook saddle " — one on each side of the horse. Dung was carried from the farmyard in these, and in harvest they bore home the sheaves to the stackyard. In loading it was needful to fill the two currachs simultaneously to keep them balanced. When one man filled more promptly than his fellow of any heavy material, he gained an advantage in depressing his own creel and correspondingly elevating that on the other side of the horse. Hence the phrase " coupin' the creels " upon one, came to be a sort of " byeword," which has hardly yet died out in certain localities. When corn or meal had to be taken to or from the mill, or conveyed away for sale, a sack or " lade " was put across each horse's back, and the animals followed one another in single file, the " hal- ter tow " of the second horse tied to the tail of the first ; and so on : a mode of transport that was still in use in the remoter parts of Aberdeen and BanfFshires at the end of last century, as many as a dozen horses being occasionally to be seen following in single file, each bearing its lade. It was not that wheeled con- veyances were utterly unknown. Carts and wheel- barrows too had been invented long before. But the cart was a clumsy vehicle indeed. It was made en- tirely of wood, including the axle-tree. As in the case of the plough, no plane was used to smoothe the sur- face of the wood in any part. In the " tumbling cart," in place of the wheels turning round on the axle, the axle-tree itself turned round. There were no iron
Implements of the Farm. 39
bushes in the naves of the wheels, and as no grease was used the movement of the cart was apt to be ac- companied by a noise more shrill than pleasant.
But the state of the roads, or rather the absence of " roads before they were made" did not favour wheeled conveyances. Up to fully the date of " the Forty-five" one or two carts in a parish would seem to have been all that existed. Toward the close of the century they had become much more abundant over the country, though, as just indicated, the currach still held its place to a mo- derate extent. The minister of New Deer (Old Stat. Ac.) says "when the present incumbent was settled, in 1737, there was not a cart but his own in the parish ; nor were there roads which could be travelled in many places. Then, and for many years after, there was but one carrier who went weekly to Aberdeen with a horse and packets ; sometimes he even went with nothing but a back creel, and brought what merchandise and provision were at the time necessary. Now (1793), there is sufficient employment for three or four carriers, who go each with a cart and two horses." Similar statements are made by various others. Two-wheeled carts became common in most lowland districts during the last quarter of the eighteenth century.
Of the primitive character of the farm implements generally, near the close of the eighteenth century, an incidental illustration may be given from the pages of a witness already cited. Dr. James Anderson, who was a keen improver and reformer of old things gen- erally, credits his patron, Mr. Udny of Udny, with a useful invention in implements. That gentleman, who filled the office of a commissioner of excise, was an earnest agricultural improver. He was an early and successful cultivator of the turnip, and his invention was an improved sower — cost eightpence to a shilling. It was a perforated tin box with a wooden handle — neither more nor less than a " Bobbin' John," which was carried along in the hand over the drill top and
40 Notes and Sketches.
shaken to throw out the seed. Its capabilities as a sower are strongly lauded by Dr. Anderson, by whom it is averred that many hundreds of persons who could neither have purchased nor used a fine apparatus, had, by the possession of it, been induced to enter keenly into the cultivation of turnips. And he held that, " To induce such persons to go forward on a small scale is an object of much greater consequence than to have kings and princes, and the great men of the earth, displaying with a pompous parade a complicated ap- paratus which would prove the ruin of a poor man to attempt to purchase." And so, when the century was near its close, an implement like the ordinary turnip sower for horse haulage, had evidently been regarded, even by men of advanced ideas, as rather an elaborate piece of mechanism.
C H A P T E R ^V 1 1.
RESULTS OF CULTIVATION — PERIODS OF FAMINE — KING
WILLIAM'S DEAR YEARS — PICTURES OF THE TIME BY PATRICK WALKER AND FLETCHER OF SALTOUN — EFFECTS OF FAMINE IN THE NORTH — LANDS DESO- LATED.
WHEN we keep fully in view the prevailing system of tillage and the implements with which the work was accomplished, it is not difficult to understand how the results in the way of produce must often enough have been sufficiently poor to be some way short of satis- factory to the tiller. The difficulty rather is to under- stand how the soil in certain cases could have been kept under tillage on any terms. We have already seen something of the struggle that went on between the arable farmer and the indigenous "growth " that sought to re-assert its right to the possession of the soil ; and it was undoubtedly creditable to the sheer hardihood of our forefathers that they did not oftener than actually happened give way before the perversity of those less fertile parts of the stubborn glebe that yet owned their full share of the effects of the pri- meval curse, and allow the land to run again into a state of nature. In ordinary times the products of cultivation in the form of crops raised and reaped for the sustenance of man and beast were frequently but meagre. It is, however, when we look at what we find recorded regarding seasons of dearth, or absolute famine, from failure of the crops, or their destruction through inclement weather, that we most readily obtain a distinct picture of the harder conditions of life in
42 Notes and Sketches.
what has been occasionally spoken of as " the good old times."
The concluding seven years of the seventeenth cen- tury (1693-1700) were years of dearth over the greater part of Scotland, though some of the northern dis- tricts suffered earlier and more severely than many other parts of the country. The pinch of famine had begun to be felt in various parts of Aberdeenshire and Banffshire, in 1693, while it was not till 1695 that the crop in certain of the southern and western coun- ties was " stricken in one night " by an easterly fog, " and gat little more good of the ground." These were "King William's dear years." In accordance with the fiscal system of the time, an Act had been passed in 1672 forbidding the importation of meal while the price in Scotland remained below a certain rate. And an order of Council had actually been issued for " staving " grain, unlawfully brought from Carrickfergus in two vessels in 1695 ; the vessels them- selves to be handed over to the person — Sir Duncan Campbell of Auchinbreck — who had seized them on their way to a Scottish port. But now, when one season after another was only threatening the " mis- giving and blasting of the present crop to the increase of that distress whereby the kingdom is already afflicted," it was found expedient to allow the impor- tation of meal from Ireland. And not only so, for in 1698 exportation of grain was strictly prohibited; and various emphatic edicts were issued against "forestalling" and "regrating." A solemn fast was ordered on 9th March, 1699 — as fasts had been appointed in some of the previous years — on account of " the lamentable stroke of dearth and scarcity ;" while " King William, his kindness is not to be for- gotten," offered all who would transport victual to Scotland, that they might do it custom free, and have twenty pence off each boll."
The pictures we have of the sufferings endured at
Results of Cultivation. 43
this time are very lamentable. It was represented in Edinburgh in 1696, that if extraneous supplies of victual were not speedily received in Aberdeenshire " a good part of that and the next county [Banff] will undoubtedly starve." This was in July, and George Fergusson, a generous baillie of Oldmeldrum, and a member of a family long well known in that region, with Alexander Smith, writer in Edinburgh, proposed to purchase 1000 or 1200 bolls of corn and bear, to sell to the people at a price to be fixed by the autho- rities, they having no desire of profit, " but allenarly the keeping of the poor in the said shire from starving." They wished their cargo protected from the risk of French privateers on its way to Aberdeen ; and the Privy Council agreed to recommend their petition to that effect to the Lords of the Treasury.
" These manifold unheard-of judgments, " says Patrick Walker, the Packman, " continued seven years, not always alike, but the seasons, summer and winter, so cold and barren, and the wonted heat of the sun so much withholden, that it was discernible upon the cattle, flying fowls and insects decaying, that seldom a fly or cleg was to be seen • our harvests not in the ordinary months ; many shearing in November and December ; yea, some in January and February ; many contracting their deaths, and losing the use of their feet and hands shearing and working in frost and snow ; and, after all, some of it standing still and rotting upon the ground, and much of it for little use either to man or beast, and which had no taste or colour of meal."
" Meal became so scarce," adds Patrick, " that it was sold at two shillings a peck ; and many could not get it. It was not then with many, 'Where will we get siller?' but ' Where shall we get meal for siller V" " Deaths and burials were so many and common that the living were wearied with the burying of the dead. I have seen corpses drawn on sleds. Many got neither coffin
44 Notes and Sketches.
nor winding-sheet. I was one of four who carried the corpse of a young woman a mile of way, and when we came to the grave an honest poor man came and said — ' You must go and help to bury my son ; he has lain dead these two days ; otherwise I shall be obliged to bury him in my own yard.' Many . . . did eat, but were neither satisfied nor nourished ; and some of them said to me that they could mind nothing but meat, and were nothing better by it, and that they were utterly unconcerned about their souls, whether they went to heaven or hell. The nearer and sorer these plagues seized, the sadder were their effects, that took away all natural and relative affections — so that husbands had no sympathy for their wives, nor wives for their husbands : parents for their children, nor children for their parents." " These and other things" made the worthy man " doubt if ever any of Adam's race were in a more deplorable condition ;" but "the crowning plague of all" was 'that, though many were cast down, few were humbled ; there was " great murmuring, but little mourning •" " the great part turned more gospel-proof and judgment-proof."
The picture given in part, applies to the south-west of Scotland. It is singularly like that supplied by several writers of the state of things at the same period in some parts of the county of Aberdeen. Concerning the district, of which Turriff forms the centre, the misery of the people was very great — " One Thomson, wadsetter, of Hairmoss, driven from his home by want, was found dead near the shore with a piece of raw flesh in his mouth." Of sixteen families that resided on the farm of Littertie, thirteen were extinguished. On the estate of Greens, three families (the proprietor's included) only, survived. A number of farms, being entirely desolated, were con- verted into a sheep walk by the Erroll family, to whom they belonged. "The inhabitants of the parish in general," it is added, " were diminished by death to
Results of Cultivation. 45
one-half, or, as some affirm, to one fourth." " Until the year 1709 many farms were waste." The minister of Keith-hall parish, in writing of this time, says, " many died ; in particular, ten Highlanders in a neighbouring parish, that of Kemnay, so that the Kirk-Session got a bier made to carry them to the grave, not being able to afford coffins for such a number." And we read of other parts of the county being " almost depopulated" by those years of famine. In illustrating the moral effects of the prevailing physical misery ; a writer already quoted says, " when the means of saving the living and of burying the dead began to fail, natural affection was in a great measure suspended. A fellow, George Allan, having carried his deceased father upon his back halfway from his home to the churchyard, threw down the corpse at the door of a farmer, with these words, * I can carry my father no farther. For God's sake bury his body ; but, if you choose not to take that trouble, you may place it, if you please, on the dyke of your kailyard as a guard against the sheep.' "
It may be observed, in connection with the state of matters indicated rather than described, that while in those seven years there were some seasons " not altogether unfriendly to vegetation," and while the failure of the crops was only partial in its range, yet so miserable were the means of communication from want of roads, as well as want of wheeled vehicles, that, though the inhabitants of some districts of Aber- deenshire were comparatively well off, those in other districts were, at the very same time dying of absolute starvation. The minister of Turriff says of the in- habitants of his parish, that most of them, " reduced to misery, had neither money to purchase nor horses to carry" victual from the Formartine and Buchan district, where, we are told, " seed and bread abounded."
Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, in describing the misery
46 Notes and Sketches.
of " the ill years," states that, in 1698, in addition to those " very meanly provided for by the Church boxes," there were in Scotland " two hundred thousand people begging from door to door." He says the number had perhaps been doubled by "the present distress," which it is likely was quite true, though his gross estimate is probably higher than the actual number. Of the general aspect of things, Fletcher says it was fitted to stir the mind with the two powerful emotions of terror and compas- sion— " because from unwholesome food diseases are so multiplied among the poor people, that if some course be not taken, this famine may very probably be followed by a plague." And what man was there, if he had any compassion, who would not grudge himself " every nice bit, and every delicate morsel he puts in his mouth, when he considers that so many are already dead, and so many at that minute struggling with death, not for want of bread but of grains," which he was credibly informed had been used by some families in the pre- ceding year. The least unnecessary expenditure on household things or personal finery must, he adds, " reproach us with our barbarity, so long as people born with natural endowments, perhaps not inferior to our own, and fellow-citizens, perish for want of things ab- solutely necessary to life."
It throws a curious light on the legislation of the time to find that, in 1701, only a year or two after this terrible suffering from actual famine, a Govern- ment commission was issued commanding that all loads of grain which might be brought from Ireland into the west of Scotland should be staved and sunk.
The next most remarkable year of scarcity was 1740. A great frost, with " deep and untimely snow," occurred in early spring. The principal rivers in Scotland were frozen over, water mills stopped, and ships frozen in in some of the harbours. Loch Lomond was frozen over from Luss to Buchanan, so as to bear men and cattle. The Forth was frozen over above
Results of Cultivation. 47
Alloa, and there was a crust of ice even at Queens- ferry. The Thames in that year was covered with ice as far down as Billingsgate, and a fair was held on the ice. A bad summer followed. The inclemency of the season brought about failure in the crop and distress on the common people, leading to bread riots in Edin- burgh and Leith — the populace attacking certain mills, granaries, and meal shops — and the necessity of " large contributions" " from the rich to keep the poor alive." At this time day-labourers and others in Aberdeenshire, " stout men," thankfully accepted " twopence each per day in full for their work."
A natural consequence of these years of famine was to throw agriculture backward by utterly impoverishing a large proportion of those of the tenant farmer class who had managed to escape extermination. The civil wars of the previous century had been very adverse to agriculture in Scotland ; and now, in 1700, at the close of the " seven ill years," the landowners were fain to bribe tenants of substance with a yoke of oxen, or other part of the farm furnishings, to extend their holdings by leasing one or more adjoining farms that had become vacant. Sometimes they obtained tenants in sufficient number ; sometimes not. And in the latter case arable areas, here and there, went again into a state of nature ; to remain so for an indefinite time, as testified by traces of " baulk " and " burrel " rigs in various places not under the plough within living recollection ; nor indeed in exceptional instances until this day. And of so little value was land in Aberdeenshire at the period under notice, that there were instances of " considerable tracts of corn lands being so totally abandoned as to be allowed to pass from one proprietor to another merely by a pre- scriptive title of occupancy for upwards of forty years without a challenge."
CHAPTEE VIII.
THE BAD HARVEST OF 1782 THE ACTION TAKEN BY THE
TOWN AND COUNTY OF ABERDEEN TO MEET THE FAMINE.
IN 1782, the harvest was unusually late, even for a time when from imperfect cultivation and similar causes the normal period of ripening of crops was apt to be put well into the autumn. The season had been a very backward one throughout ; and the harvest of that year in Aberdeenshire is said to have been the worst on record. The summer was so cold and rainy that most of the oat crop was only beginning to shoot in the end of August. Early and severe frosts came soon after, the first in the middle of September which damaged some part of the grain then in the milky stage, so as to render it unfit for seed. And again we read, that on the night of the 5th of October, " when growing oats and barley were still generally green" " a frost, armed almost with the vigour of a Green- land climate, desolated in one night the hope of the husbandman." At the end of October, when but little of the crop had been cut, a snowstorm of extra- ordinary severity for the season ensued. Snow lay a foot deep in many places, and the storm continued for a fortnight. After it had passed away, the crop, still green but now past hope of proper ripening, was cut as it best could be in the continued cold and wet, though portions remained uncut at 28th November. Hardly any of the crop was got carried to the stackyard in the usual way, but was first put up on the fields in small " huicks," which could not be finally " led"
The Bad Harvest of 1782. 49
home till December, when two weeks of dry " open" weather occurred. Of the crop generally, the state- ment is made that while — " the fields yielded not one- third of an ordinary crop," the oatmeal, " dark in colour, was acid and disagreeable to the taste." Neither pota- toes nor turnips had yet come so prominently into use as they were destined to do : but potatoes where grown were damaged by the frost, and turnips were a very poor crop. Even the produce of the garden was, we are told, " destitute of its usual nourishment."
And the famine was not local in the narrow sense. Owing to the high price to which grain had risen in the month of November, the Scotch ports, generally, were by that time opened for importation of corn upon pay- ing the low duties. Sir William Forbes and his fellow- bankers offered the Lord Provost of Edinburgh to ad- vance .£2000 free of interest for six months, his lord- ship and the Town Council having it in view " to pro- cure a supply of corn for the advantage of the poorer sort of the community," and they having it " much at heart" " to facilitate so very useful a plan." The Lord Advocate, in whose mind " very serious apprehensions had arose relative to the supply of provisions for the lower class of the inhabitants of Scotland for the ensu- ing year," had previously written to the Provost sug- gesting the propriety of people contributing according to their means in order to keep the markets " from ris- ing to any immoderate height." The Lord Advocate is persuaded the Lord Provost and his brethren will take the requisite steps in the matter ; and as his excuse for troubling him, requests that in case he should be absent from Scotland when any plan is in agitation, his lord- ship " would dispose of him to the extent of £100 " for promoting the same.
At the meeting of Aberdeen Town Council held on 8th November, the Provost represented that " the state and condition of the country was universally al- lowed to be alarming ; and that, notwithstanding the 5
50 Notes and Sketches.
advanced season of the year, a very large part of the crop was in many parts still uncut down, and conse- quently in imminent hazard." At same time, there was " but a very small quantity of meal in town for supply of the inhabitants." The chief magistrate further stated that his Monthly Committee had thought it right to confer with some of the principal traders as to a speedy supply of meal, and a subscription had been set on foot "with considerable success." What further happened was, that the Council voted a donation of three hundred guineas out of the town's funds to aid the citizens' sub- scription. A " proper person," Eobert Gibbons to wit, was next appointed to proceed southward to purchase grain or meal to the extent of 1000 bolls, to be got through British or foreign ports ; only it was the deter- mination of the general meeting by which the appoint- ment was made " that the encouragement to be given for importing grain be confined to grain imported for the sole purpose of being converted into meal."
This was in November, and as stated early in that month. By and by matters were getting more serious, and the pinch of actual famine seemed likely to be felt with some severity. On the last day of December, 1782, the famishing country people " could get no meal in Aberdeen, as the citizens were afraid of a famine, and a poor man in the district of Garioch could find none in the country the day after." In November oat- meal sold at thirteen pence to fifteen pence a peck ; at the market held on the first Friday of January, 1783, it rose to "the enormous price of twenty pence per peck." In that month the Aberdeen Bank and the Bank of Scotland offered each an advance of £3000 for twelve months, free of interest, " for the relief of the poor in both the new and old town," which advances were ac- cepted, and no doubt largely used, as we find that by the beginning of the month of March £900 had been "given off by the magistrates" to importers of grain, and a com- mittee of nineteen, who had been appointed for " man-
The Bad Harvest of 1782. 51
aging and conducting the business of the subscription," were authorised to intromit with the balance yet remain- ing.
So early as 29th October, the Commissioners of Supply for the County of Aberdeen had met and taken into consideration the alarming state of the country from " the almost certain appearance of scarcity," and the likelihood of dearth before next harvest. And being persuaded that meal of all sorts would not only be very dear, but in many parts of the country hardly to be got at any price, it was agreed that in the circum- stances it would be a great injury to the poor " to give the smallest encouragement to any practice that might make their bread still scarcer and dearer." The com- missioners accordingly declared formally that they were " resolved to punish in the most exemplary manner all persons who should be convicted of privately and illegally distilling spirits from grain ;" and they hoped the officers of Excise would exert themselves in dis- covering all transgressors of that class.
Circular letters were soon after sent out to the parish ministers, asking them to give in reports on the state and condition of the crop, " how soon the corns are got in, "a method that was followed in some of the neigh- bouring counties as well. At another meeting held on 6th December, it was found that answers had been re- ceived from very few of the ministers, owing, it may be, to the fact that at that date the crop in many cases had not been got in.
On the 23rd day of December, 1782, a meeting of the proprietors and principal inhabitants of Aberdeen- shire was held, the Sheriff of the county, Mr. Robert Turner, being put in the chair. The expressed object of the meeting was " to take under consideration not only the present state of the country and the crop of this year, but also to consider of what may be done for the ensuing year, especially regarding the capital article of seed." The facts stated by individuals at this meet-
52 Notes and Sketches.
ing from their own knowledge were, we are assured, " of a nature too singular to be allowed to fall into oblivion. At that time it appeared that great quantities of corn in many parts of the country were still to cut down. Some gentlemen who lived in the best parts of the county gave it as their opinion that a boll of the best oats might give about half a boll of meal." But others, " especially in the higher parts of the county" were of opinion that " it would require three bolls of the best oats to give one boll of meal ; and many instances were produced where it had not yielded one-fourth of that proportion. From about thirty trials in the lands of Mounie, which is one of the earliest places in the Garioch, it was found to require three bolls of oats to give one boll of meal on an average."
It was computed, in short, that from, lateness, bad weather, destruction by rooks, heating, and other casual- ties, one-fourth of the crop was lost before it could be got in, and that between waste and actual deficiency little more than one-fifth of the usual quantity could be used for meal.
The computation made was, that while in an ordinary year each 100 bolls of grain grown might be reckoned in this way : — 25 bolls for seed, and 75 bolls for as many bolls of meal ; each hundred bolls of crop 1782, must be reckoned thus — 30 bolls for seed and 25 bolls for waste, leaving 45 bolls, which would average only 18 J bolls of meal. The inhabitants of the county were computed at 131,000, and the calculated allowance of oatmeal to these was 300,000 bolls. " It was admitted that the county used to supply its whole inhabitants with corn in an ordinary year, and no more, as it ap- peared from the Custom-house books, that the exports and imports, including transportation coastwise in both cises, were nearly equal on an average of years." Instead of 300,000 bolls, the data submitted showed only 79,000, say 80,000 bolls, making a .deficiency of 220,000 bolls. The crops in the southern parts of the
The Bad Harvest of 1782. 53
island had not suffered nearly so much; and hence flour imported from England became comparatively so plentiful in Aberdeen as to be cheaper than oatmeal ; one result of which was that the Governors of Robert Gordon's Hospital ordered coarse flour to be used in that Institution instead of oatmeal.
To meet a deficiency of the character indicated was no slight matter. A somewhat sanguine narrator of the oc- currences of the time (Dr James Anderson) speaks of the " unanimous resolution" of the meeting of proprietors and principal inhabitants, that "all ranks" should abstain from malting bear. The usual annual yield of that grain, we are told, was estimated at 80,000 bolls. Half of this, it was thought, could be made into meal, yield- ing say 60,000 bolls. The estimated " saving in con- sequence of scarcity" (in other words, the depth of the hunger bite) was put at 35,000 bolls ; accelerating next harvest by early sowing, " and mealing it as soon as possible," might, it was thought, be equal to 25,000 bolls; and, as the past harvest, by its lateness, had shortened the period of waiting, a favourable season, with very prompt resort to early potatoes, might give another gain of a month, or say 25,000 bolls. This would leave the actual deficiency in the meal supply of the county at 75,000 bolls. And this estimate, it is added, was pretty near the actual state of the case. The total importation was about 80,000 bolls.
The sentiments of the County Meeting found osten- sible expression in a minute remarkable for its unusual length and the copiousness of its style.* It sets forth that in order to prevent the inhabitants from experiencing a total want of food before another crop can be brought to maturity, it is a matter of necessity " that every individual shall observe the most frugal economy in regard to piovisions; that the smallest article which
* If a guess might be hazarded on the point, the internal evidence would seem to indicate that this minute had been drafted by Dr, James Anderson,
54 Notes and Sketches.
can be employed as the food of man be not on any occasion applied to other uses, or lost through neglect or inattention." And in the way of practical enforce- ment, it is argued that " with this view, all dogs, unless those of great use and value, should be instantly put to death. At a time like the present, when the whole produce of the country is not sufficient to sustain the life of the inhabitants themselves, it must," says the minute, " be deemed a heinous crime to suffer any part of that food to be consumed by vile animals. Those who must have useful dogs, and those of higher rank who can afford to keep dogs of value, ought to procure from abroad as much grain at least as would serve to sustain them till a new crop can be brought to market. Persons in lower circumstances who, regardless of the duties they owe to themselves and society, persist in keeping these animals, should be accounted enemies of mankind. They cannot in justice lay claim to the sympathising benevolence of their fellow-creatures, and their dogs ought to be destroyed by order of the civil magistrates and Justices of the Peace."
For the like reasons it was thought right that no corn that could be converted into meal should be given to horses. " Good hay and straw, with whins, where these can be had, will sustain, during the winter season, horses which are moderately worked. And in regard to chaise horses, which at present too much abound, it is believed the necessity of the times will greatly diminish their employment ; and it is hoped that those who, through disease or otherwise, are under the necessity of employing them, will permit them to be so gently driven as not to hurt them, though greatly stinted in their usual allowance of corn." It was strongly urged that people should refuse to sell for horse corn what was fit to be made into oatmeal. Inn- keepers might get a supply from abroad ; and it behoved them to devise the means of so obtaining it.
One of the numerous " resolves," and which bears on
The Bad Harvest of 1782. 55
the question of malting bear, already spoken of, seems rather in the nature of a simple recommendation. It runs thus : — " To show an example of moderation in the use of the necessaries of life to those of inferior degree, it will be highly commendable, in all gentlemen and others, not only to give over entirely for a time the use of home-made spirits, but also, in as far as health permits, to abstain from the use of malt liquors of every kind that shall be brewed from grain in this country, and also prohibit their servants from using it as drink, permitting no malt liquor in their families but merely as kitchen (that is as a nourishing and palatable addition) to bread or other dry food where milk cannot be had ; and in that case to allow no more at each meal than shall appear to be indispensably necessary." Following on this other provident and precautionary measures were suggested. Gentlemen were recommended to make exact survey of " all the corns" on their respective estates, to ascertain what stacks contained stuff in a state sufficient for seed, and have these "marked off and appropriated to that purpose alone ;" to promote the sowing of bear in place of oats as coming earlier to harvest ; and, in particular, that a subscription should be opened to import early potatoes for seed, " especially the early Henley," which, it seems came two months sooner to maturity than the other varieties. And as early Dutch turnips came "into eating in May and June," these would be found highly useful. More- over, " the meal of the present crop, on account of its bad quality, will, with too much certainty, subject those who must live entirely upon it to various disorders ; and nothing it has been said, proves more efficacious to remove this species of disorder than turnip." To all this is added the recommendation that, to render next crop as abundant as might be, farmers should prepare only the best of their land for sowing — (proprietors sanc- tioning departure from the usual rules of husbandry) — dis- regarding " that which would yield but a poor return."
56 Notes and Sketches.
The general conclusion of the meeting was expressed in this wise — " But when all this shall be done there will still remain a frightful deficiency, which must in one way or another be made up, or many of the poor will inevitably perish for want." It was agreed to pe- tition Government to give a bounty on importation of grain; and other measures of purely local application were adopted, including that of printing and circulating the resolutions of the meeting, a step that appears to have so far re-opened the question ; for at a meeting of Com- missioners of Supply in January 31, 1783, with Sir William Forbes as preses, Mr. Turner of Menie had the question put formally — " Whether or not the resolu- tions of the said meeting, which had been printed and dispersed, were not hurtful both to the town and county of Aberdeen, and the fears of want therein exaggerated]" A majority of votes decided the question in the affir- mative ; but in order that the sense of the county might be more fully ascertained, an adjourned meeting " of landed gentlemen and freeholders " was held on 1 4th February ; and they agreed " that the dread of so fatal a want, as had been formerly suggested, was groundless, but were sensible that the crop had proved remarkably deficient, and therefore made no doubt that this would become an object of most serious consideration and at- tention to every gentleman in the county."
Beyond question there was famine in the land ; and there is abundant evidence that but for extraneous sup- plies, death from want would have been far from an uncommon experience. The estimate of crop, as we have seen, gave less than a third of the crop of an or- dinary year in quantity ; and in an ordinary year they grew only enough to meet their own wants — precisely what the generation of a hundred years earlier had done. And the quality of such crop as they had was bad, being greatly lack ing in wholesomeness and nourishment. Well might it be that, as put by one of the local chroniclers, a man evidently exercised in the construction of sen-
The Bad Rawest of 1782. 57
tences — " Temperance stern but friendly established her reign on the solid base of necessity." But the pressure of dearth went much deeper than this ; and but for the importation of bread stuffs already spoken of, and which took the shape, to a considerable extent, of grants by Government of oatmeal and peasemeal, or rather of pease to be ground into meal, there is no reason to doubt the statement that "numbers would have perished."
Neither of the two adjoining counties seems to have suffered quite so severely. The parish reports asked for and obtained by the Commissioners of Supply for Banff- shire in the late autumn of 1782, led them to conclude that " the condition of the crop was not so bad as was apprehended." In Kincardineshire a portion of the cereal crop was wheat, which gave better results compa- ratively than the oat crop ; and the farmers ground it in the ordinary corn mills, using it for porridge, while they made cakes of the oatmeal and bearmeal.
In country districts the distribution of these grants of meal was a duty that fell to the Kirk-sessions, who, as a rule, did their part with a creditable amount of shrewdness and humane feeling. Here, in brief, are the arrangements in a large parish in a central Aber- deenshire Presbytery, and which may be taken as typical of the county parishes generally. On Wednesday. 8th January, 1783, a fast was observed according to the Pres- bytery's appointment, and the occasion no doubt carried with it more of a practical aspect than " fasts" frequently do. On April 13th, the Session, " considering the de- plorable situation of the parish through the dearth and scarcity of meal, and being well informed that even they who cannot properly be ranked amongst the poor, find very great difficulty in getting meal even when they have money to pay for it," resolved " to bespeak fourty bolls of pease on their own account." They held a bond of a principal heritor for a certain amount, and, he being out of the country at the time, " the interest could not be uplifted till his return ;" but several " generous and
58 Notes and Sketches.
charitable " individuals made offer of sums without in- terest to pay for the pease purchased; and others "cheer- fully promised " their assistance in fetching the pur- chase home. The price of the pease was <£! 2s (ster- ling) per boll ; and as the carts told off to convey the " fourty bolls " numbered fourteen double and three single carts, the separate loads would not be very large even for a twenty mile journey. The quantity of pease- meal yielded was " not fully sixty bolls," and as the cost, including milling and drying, was <£44 16s. 8d., the Session found they could not sell their peasemeal under Is. per peck. What happened next was that, under supervision of the elders, appointed to the duty in turn, over forty bolls were sold, and four bolls given away gratis early in May. It was not till July that five bolls of meal were got from. " the Royal bounty ;" and between that and the beginning of November it seems to have been a continued struggle with want. One or two further doles were got from the Government grant ; while the Session, in addition to distributing the re- mainder of their own purchase, bought a further supply of oatmeal when harvest had come to distribute among poor people who, from the long distress, were unable to supply themselves even after the price had fallen.
The " ill years 1782-3" had the effect of ruining many farmers in Aberdeenshire, and some landlords as well ; and a good deal of emigration to America followed. And while a further result was to stimulate improve- ment by the introduction of earlier and better varieties of grain, and greater attention to green crops, the neces- sities of the time greatly promoted the granting of long leases during the immediately succeeding years. Pre- viously the leases given had been of varying length, seven, nine, twelve, fifteen, or nineteen years being terms occasionally granted indifferently by the same proprietor. The prevailing poverty on both sides made it an object now to secure substantial tenants ; and thus, when a man, possessed of a few hundred pounds
The Bad Harvest of 1782. 59
came in the way, he was encouraged in the idea of permanency of occupation by the offer of a lease not merely for his lifetime, but for the period of one or two lives in succession after his own, he naming his suc- cessors. Some of these leases granted soon after 1782 had not finally expired in 1860.
CHAPTER IX.
LIVE STOCK — EARLY IMPROVERS — ROB ROY AS A CATTLE DEALER — HIGHLAND REIVERS — THE BLACK WATCH — VALUE OF CATTLE PLUNDERED.
" THE places in this country which produce sheep and black cattle have no provision for them in winter during the snows, having neither hay nor straw, nor any enclosure to shelter them on the grass from the cold easterly winds in the spring ; so that the beasts are in a dying condition, and the grass consumed by those destructive winds, till the warm weather, about the middle of June, come to the relief of both." These words were written of date 1698, and they pre- sent a vivid and graphic, as well as, in the main, a truthful sketch of the conditions under which the live stock of the country existed about the close of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century. At that time the native breeds of both cattle and sheep were poor in character and poorly kept. Im- provement in the rearing of neat stock seems to have begun in the south-western corner of the land. Sir David D unbar of Baldoon, in Galloway, the very tragic story of whose wooing and wedding furnished Sir Walter Scott with the central incidents in "The Bride of Lammermoor," and who was himself killed in 1682, was "an active improver of the wretched rural economy of his day." And amongst other things, he formed a famous park, two and a-half miles in length and one and a-half in breadth, which could "keep in it summer and winter a thousand bestial." Part of these, we are told, he bought from the country,
Live Stock 61
and part were of his own breed, " for he hath nearly two hundred milch kine, which, for the most part, have calves yearly." Sir David sold yearly to drovers, or sent to St. Faith's and other fairs in England, about eighteen or twenty score of bestial. " Those of his own breed," the chronicler adds, " at four years old are very large ; yea, so large that in August or September, 1682, nine and fifty of that sort, which would have yielded between £5 and £6 sterling the piece, were seized upon in England for Irish cattle ; and because the person to whom they were intrusted had not witnesses there ready at the precise hour to swear that they were seen calved in Scotland, they were, by sentence of Sir J. L. and some others, who knew well enough that they were bred in Scotland, knocked on the head and killed."
This extract throws a somewhat curious light on both the cattle trade and the political economy of the time. Whether the Baldoon cattle were the ancestors of the native " Galloways" of the present day, we know not ; possibly they were. But it does seem rather odd that a set of English magistrates (as presumably Sir J. L. and his friends had been) should seize upon a number of them and have them killed upon the mere suspicion, or pretence rather, of their being Irish cattle. The oifence, even though it had been proved, would not seem a very grievous one, there having apparently been no dread of contagious cattle diseases then. But not only did Ireland possess a superior breed of cattle at that time ; it was also against the law to import them into Scotland. We find Sir David Dunbar's successor at Baldoon petition- ing the Privy Council for permission to import from Ireland " six score young cows of the largest breed," for making up his stock in the park of Baldoon ; he " giving security that he would import no more, and employ these for no other end."
Various others followed the example set at Baldoon,
62 Notes and Sketches.
and a considerable trade in droving cattle from Galloway and other parts of Scotland to England seems to have sprung up. Sir George Campbell of Cessnock, in Ayrshire, had also a park " furnished with ' ane great brood of cattle' and a superior brood of horses, both from Ireland," and he, too, asks permission to import from the Green Isle.
The Union between England and Scotland, which took place in 1707, gave a stimulus to various branches of manufactures and trade, and among other things to the trade in cattle, which then began to be sent southward in greater numbers and from further distances off than before ; the profits derived leading certain gentlemen, members of families who considered commerce in any shape rather below them, to become cattle-dealers. Amongst these was the Hon. Patrick Ogilvie, brother of Lord Seafield. Seafield, as Chancellor of Scotland, had taken an active part in bringing about the Union, a measure very unpopular at the' time north of the Border. And accordingly, on the Chancellor remonstrating with his brother, on his undignified business of cattle dealer, the latter drily replied, "Better sell nowte than sell nations."
In a sketch given of a great cattle fair at Crieff, in 1723, it is said there were at least 30,000 cattle sold there, most of them to English drovers, who paid down above 30,000 guineas in ready money to the Highlanders; " a sum they had never seen before." The Highlanders, it is added, " hired themselves out for a shilling a day, to drive the cattle to England, and to return home at their own charges." The con- nection of the Highlanders with the cattle business was not always quite so accommodating or creditable as this. Yet it is somewhat curious to find that the famous Rob Roy Macgregor, cattle lifter and outlaw, began his career as a legitimate cattle dealer, buying cattle in this very Crieff market and other fairs, and
Live Stock 63
droving them to England. The first public notice we have of him was his being advertised as a fraudulent bankrupt, who, having been " intrusted by several noblemen and gentlemen with considerable sums for buying cows for them in the Highlands, has treacher- ously gone off with the money to the value of £1000 sterling, which he carries along with him." The real explanation was understood to be that Eob had been placed in serious pecuniary difficulties by the defalca- tions of a subordinate agent or partner, and to avoid the penalty of a harsh law, desired to keep out of the way for the time. But the Buke of Montrose, who had advanced money, as a sort of sleeping partner with Macgregor, having got Rob's wife and family turned out of his poor property of Inversnaid, Rob took to the rough country round Ben Lomond as his retreat, assumed the outlaw's life, and took sweet re- venge by pouncing down as occasion served upon the Duke's Lowland farms, and making booty of meal and cattle ; and on one occasion of his factor, along with the rents he was engaged in collecting.
But Rob Roy was not the originator of the practice of cattle lifting, any more than he was the last that lived by it. A contemporary description of the Highlanders of this time, and which is more forcible than complimentary, speaks of them as " a people who are all gentlemen, only because they will not work ; and who, in everything, are more contemptible than the vilest slaves, except that they always carry arms, because, for the most part, they live upon robbery." And truly the Highlander's habits gave not a little countenance to the accusation. Long before Rob Roy's day, the unceremonious Celts were wont to come down in force upon the Lowlands, and carry off " spreaths" of cattle and other goods. We read of such expeditions as that made in 1689, by a dozen wild Lochaber men, who had come down to the heart of Aberdeenshire — more than one hundred miles — and
64 Notes and Sketches.
" lifted" six score black cattle. They were pursued by a body of nearly 50 horsemen, well mounted, and armed, and each carrying bags of meal and other pro- visions, both for their own support, and to offer in ransom for the cattle, if peaceful negotiations could be carried through. On through the hills, over marshes, rocks, and heather, the spirited horsemen followed, under their leader ; and guided by a herd boy whom they encountered, they traced the robbers by Loch Erricht side into the heart of their own country. At nightfall, they came upon them at Dalunchart, en- camped and busily engaged roasting a portion of the flesh of one of the cattle they had stolen. They offered, after some parley, to give each of the free- booters a bag of meal and a pair of shoes in ransom for the cattle. The Highlanders treated such an offer for cattle driven so far and with so much trouble with contempt ; the herd was gathered in, and the fight began in deep earnest, the result being that the Loch- aber men were all shot down, killed or wounded, except three, who escaped unhurt to tell the tale ; and the cattle were, of course, recovered.
In 1691 a certain Hugh Thaine, messenger, makes declaration that he is unable to go " the length of Edinburgh" from Elgin " by reason of sickness and inabilitie of bodie," from " the hard usage" he had met in Strathspey, in the wood of Abernethy. And he " supplicats" the Privy Council or other judges to " apoynt some way for redressing and punishing the abusses committed against the law and Government" upon his person and those in his company. Some Strathspey Highlanders had lifted cattle belong- ing to Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstone, and Hugh, in his official capacity, had been sent to cite the Laird of Grant, as answerable for his clan : when he and three men who accompanied him " were seized upon be a pearty of armed men, who most maisterfullie and violently struck ine with ther gunues, gave me a stobbe
Live Stock 65
with a durke in my shoulder, and a stroak with my owen sword; robbed me of my money, my linens, some cloathes, my sword, and provisions." They also took Hugh's letters, bound him and his company, and " allways" threatened him with " present death" for executing " the foresaid letters." They offered his life to any one of the company who would hang the rest ; and finally, having secured them with " horse roaps," left them in the wood, where they lay on the ground " in cold, hunger, and great miserie for four days and three nights." Such was the treatment of which cattle lifters deemed the myrmidons of the law fit subjects.
The thefts and depredations committed upon some lands by Rob Roy and his followers are said to have been equal to the rents of those lands. The practice of cattle lifting had indeed come to be a well-systeniatised business, and the freebooting Highlanders had their own code of honour in conducting it. When cattle were stolen, one means of recovery used was to send an emissary into the region where the thief was supposed to be, and offer a reward for his discovery. This re- ward was looked on with great abhorrence. With the high-minded Highlander, who scrupled not to rob his Lowland neighbour's byres and his girnal, tascal money, as he called it, was the " unclean thing," and he and his fellows would solemnly swear over their drawn dirks that they would never defile their consciences by taking any such reward from the vile " Lallander." " Black mail " was exacted with very peculiar coolness. When a district was almost ruined by the depredations of a band of thieves, their leader or some friend of his would generously propose that for a certain annual payment he would protect it from plunder. There was no help but comply, as those who refused were made special victims ; and it occasionally happened that some of the thieves themselves, living within the district, were hypocritical enough to pay black mail to keep up appearances. 0
66 Notes and Sketches.
In the reign of William III., there had been an armed watch established, and severe measures taken to put down this system. But for a time this had been given up, and in 1724 Government established six companies of native soldiery, consisting of 480 men of the clans believed to be loyal, to prevent these cattle robberies and suppress the disgraceful impost. The men were dressed in plain dark-coloured tartan : and hence were called the Reicudan Dhu or Black Watch. And such was the -origin of a regiment since then highly distin- guished in many a well-fought field — the gallant 42nd Highlanders. They were formed into a regular regiment in 1735 for foreign service; and a consequence of the removal of the companies from their special posts as the Black Watch was the revival of the old practice of cattle lifting, which had been pretty effectually kept down by them. The caterans in 1743 came down again into Badenoch, into JSTairnshire, and Banffshire, " harrying" as they could, and not scrupling even to kill those who resisted the driving off of their cattle. And in the fol- lowing year Macpherson of Cluny had to raise a body of armed retainers, and take active measures to put down the determined incursions of the Highland rob- bers. Down to 1 745, though the Highlanders may have confined their raids to nearer home, there does not seem to have been much abatement of the practice of cattle lifting. Mr. Graham of Gartmore, writing about the close of the Rebellion, says : — " It may be safely affirmed that the horses, cows, sheep, and goats yearly stolen in that country [the Highlands generally] are in value equal to .£5000, and that the expenses lost in the fruit- less endeavours to recover them will not be less than X2000 ; that the extraordinary expense of keeping herds and servants to look more narrowly after cattle on account of stealing, otherwise not necessary, is <£! 0,000. There is paid in black mail or watch money, openly or privately, .£5000 ; and there is a yearly loss by under-stocking the grounds, by reason of thefts, of
Live Stock. 67
at least .£15,000, which is altogether a loss to land- lords and farmers in the Highlands of .£37,000 a-year."
If Mr. Graham's statement can be accepted as even approximately correct, the business of cattle lifting had clearly been of considerable extent. At that date the animals stolen would not have exceeded £3 in average value, so that sixteen hundred at least must have been stolen annually. Only in certain cases the Highlanders apparently regarded reiving in the light of a serious duty. Captain Burt speaks of their holding the doctrine that they had a right to plunder their Low- land neighbours, particularly the Moray lairds, on the ground that their ancestors once owned the lands of these same neighbours. A letter addressed by the laird of Lochiel to the laird of Grant, the terms of which follow, bears out this view, and at same time shows that these forays were sometimes dangerous to both the aggressors and their victims : —
RESPD. AND LOWING COUSIN. — My heartly commendations being mentioned to you. I have received your letter concerning this misfortunate accident that never fell out the like between our houses the like before in no man's days; but praised be God, I am innocent of the same, and my friends, both in respect that they went not in your bounds, but to Murray lands, where all men taken their prey nor knew not that Moynes was ane Graunt, but thought he was ane Murrayman, and if they knew him they would not stor his land more than the rest of your bounds in Strathspey, and, sir, I have gotten such a loss of my friends, which I hope you shall consider, for I have aught dead already and I have 12 or 13 under cure quhilk I know not who shall die or who shall live of the saming ; so, sir, whosoever has gotten the greatest loss I am content that the same shall be referred to the sight of friends that loveth us both alike, and there is such a trouble here amongst us that we cannot look to the same, for the pi-esent tyme, until I witt who shall live of my men that is under cure. So not further troubling you at this tyme, sir, you shall not be offended at my friend's innocence, so I rest you.
ALEXANDER CAM. of Lochyle.
Glenlacharkeg, 18 October, 1645.
CHAPTEE X.
LIVE STOCK— REARING IMPROVED ANIMALS — CATTLE DEALING AND DROVING.
THE great cattle fair of Crieff, so flourishing in 1723, like other institutions, had its time, and then ceased to be what it had once been. When stricter notions began to prevail regarding improved lands and rights of pro- perty therein, the Highlanders could not, as hitherto, get their cattle driven thither on the principle of free grazing all the way from their native glens — (or at any rate from the point at which they came outside the Highland border) — and market " custom," too, had begun to be exacted on the cattle offered for sale. So they found it more advantageous to make their rendez- vous at Falkirk ; and Crieff came to be a horse market chiefly. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, the Falkirk Trysts, where the southern dealers in cattle met the dealers from the northward, had grown to a position of great importance, owing, no doubt, to the fact that the locality was at once accessible from both the Highlands and the Lowlands, and convenient for the dealers who bought cattle to " drove " southward. To- ward the close of the century, it was estimated that between 20,000 and 30,000 black cattle were offered for sale at each October Tryst; and that the cattle brought up to the three Trysts that occurred during the year would number about 60,000.
It was only after the eighteenth century was fully half gone that any considerable trade in cattle existed north of the Tay. Berwickshire, the Lothians, and
Live Stock. 69
Fifeshire on the east coast, with Perthshire and the adjoining counties to the westward, had been chiefly concerned in that business at an earlier date. Farmers in the north-eastern counties — Angus, Kincardine, Aberdeen, and Banff — got oxen for the plough from the Lothians, and later from the county of Fife ; the cattle they reared of their own native breed being too " sober" for the yoke. They bought them of the dealers when young ; that is, when three years old, or there- by ; kept them as draught cattle for the next eight or nine years, and then re-sold them to the same class of traders at the best price obtainable ; though it would frequently happen, we are told, that these venerable oxen had to be parted with " at a great discount." But now that the Lothian farmers had begun to find it more to their advantage to grow wheat and other grain rather than breed live stock, the rearing of cattle became of more account with the northern Scottish farmer. In the first place, he must have oxen to enable him to plough his land ; and he would by and by come to take his due part in rearing cattle for the dealer to drove southward. Some of the proprietors made spirited efforts to im- prove the cattle and rear stronger animals by obtaining bulls from Falkland in Fife, where a superior breed, originally from south the Tweed, existed. Other varie- ties were imported directly from England, but with no great success it would seem. The complaint was that there was no food to support these large-sized and some- what delicate animals. And, indeed, until cultiva- tion of the turnip became general (which it did in the latter part of the eighteenth century, especially during the last decade), it is rather difficult to realise the miserable style in which even the small black cattle were maintained, especially during the " wintering," when the staple of their sustenance, at its best, was oat straw, with what they could pick up by roaming over the fields. By early spring the poor animals had got into sadly reduced condition, and if severe weather
70 Notes and Sketches. .
continued far into the season, it was not always that the farmer could bring his whole stock to the grass in life, through lack of nutritive provender. And even when spring had fully come, the pasture on the cultivated land, furnished by the growth of indigenous grasses, was wretchedly poor. In the Cromar and some other districts of Aberdeen shire, the practice was to send the larger cattle away about the end of May to graze in the Highland glens at many miles distance, and they were brought home again about the end of August. The cost of grazing was 2s. or 3s. a-head for the summer. In the pastoral region of Cabrach, in Banffshire and Aberdeenshire, where the tenants traded in cattle as they could, they bought in sheep in early spring, and cattle a little later, to graze ; and sold them off again about August. The cost of grazing black cattle about 1790 was 2s. a-head on hill pasture, and 5s. a-head on " infield " grass for the summer ; not high rates ; but then at three years of age and upward these same cattle ranged only from £3 to £7 a-head in value.
About 1750, when ten or twelve oxen were univer- sally used in each plough in Aberdeenshire, " the greater part of the draught oxen came from the Lothians." Twenty years later they came from Fife- shire, but not in so great proportion ; and the number reared by farmers themselves gradually increased till the disastrous year 1782, which, if it ruined many farmers, had also the effect of stimulating those who escaped ruin in the direction of improved modes. After that date, turnip cultivation, as already indicated, became more general ; the plough teams were curtailed, and the oxen that composed them were almost exclusively reared at home. It is curious, however, to note the enormous proportion which the work oxen bore to other stock, so late as the date of the Old Statistical Eeport even. Thus, one minister of an Aberdeenshire parish, who had been at the trouble to take the bovine statistics of his diocese, as indeed a good many others did, informs us
Live Stock 71
that there were in it 953 cattle ; and of these no less than 346 were oxen for the plough, the number of ploughs in the parish being 65.
In connection with what has been said about the in- troduction of improved breeds of cattle, it has to be noted that the business of sheep farming was no whit more advanced than that of stock raising. Considerable numbers of one or two native breeds of very small size (there was a whitefaced and a blackfaced variety) were reared in the Lowlands. They were fed on the rougher and less fertile pieces of land, and were valued chiefly for their wool, which was fine, though the fleece would weigh only from 20 to 28 ozs. It was not till the pa- triotic Sir John Sinclair formed the British Wool Society in 1791, that the larger Cheviot variety or " long hill sheep of the East Border " was generally introduced and naturalised in the northern parts of Scotland.
In or about the year 1764 "a few dealers from Gallo- way and the west of Scotland " seem to have begun a sort of regular business of " droving " cattle to England. A more or less intermittent " trade " of the kind had ap- parently gone on for many years previous to that time. And some of these Scotch cattle, after sale in English fairs, and fattening on English pastures, would find their way to the London market ; though the wants of the Navy in the matter of salt beef appear to have been at this time, and for long after, regarded as the main source of demand. In 1 763 " salted beef was purchased at the average of one penny per pound." It rose in price next year ; but the year after, viz., 1765, the price of black cattle fell so suddenly and badly that " the dealers in Aberdeenshire universally stopped payments." In 1766, " cattle dealers came from England, in the end of June and July, to purchase live stock for the English market " (previously they had been content to wait till they were " droved " over the Border to them). The fact indicated a rising demand ; which was but temporary, however, for " a second and sudden fall
72 Notes and Sketches.
of the price of black cattle towards the end of 1767, again damped the spirits of the farmers and ruined all the cattle dealers." Prices declined till 1770, when they had reached the low level that prevailed before the influence of the southern market had been felt. From that date, with occasional fluctuations — and aided by the demands of the Navy, pretty generally on a war footing in those days — prices kept higher till the short- lived peace of October, 1801, brought " a temporary fall of 25 per cent, in the price of cattle;" and thus, " for the third time" in the reign of His Majesty King George III., most of the unhappy cattle-dealers were " ruined." * By that time the price of a well-grown ox of three to four years old had risen to as high as <£20, which was much more than double the price when droving southward began ; though it must not be forgot that the cattle had much improved in quality and size. In the report to the Board of Agriculture for the county of Kincardine, we read that, " about the year 1740, the largest ox in the county at that time, weighing from 25 to 30 stones, could have been bought for twenty shillings, or at most a guinea;" which is less than a shilling a stone — the stone of that period being equal to about 17*4 of the present imperial Ibs. They rose gradually in price till about the year 1764, when " cattle of that size, and as full-fed as the country could make them, brought from £3 to <£4, or from 2s. to 2s. 8d. the stone. From this period, cattle, being somewhat better fed, not only in- creased in size, but were improved in condition. And from the increased demand for butcher meat, combined
* In his interesting book on "Cattle and Cattle Breeders," in which the process of dealing, as practised in the earlier part of the present century, is graphically described, Mr. M'Combie, M. P., tells a story of George Williamson, the senior member of a well-known family of local cattle dealers, known as the "Stately" Williamsons, and the peace of 1815 :— "He was passing through Perth with a large drove of cattle. The Bells were ringing a merry peal for the peace. St. John's Wells said it was a sorrowful peal to him, for it cost him £4000."
Live Stock. 73
with the gradual decline in the value of money, the price of meat in the market, by the year 1792, enabled the graziers to give at the rate of 6s. 8d. the stone." After the use of turnips had become general, " every succeeding generation " of cattle increased in size, and the statement of Messrs. Williamson was that in their time (say 1810) by the introduction of the turnip hus- bandry, the native breed, from better keeping, had come to weigh at least double its former weight. Up to this date, and indeed for a long while after, the ordinary farmer did not regard the fattening of cattle as a thing much in his way. He aimed rather at rearing what stock he could, to be sold in " fresh keeping condition" to the butcher or other person who chose to " feed " for the shambles, a state of matters now very completely changed.
According to the estimate of Sir John Sinclair, about 100,000 head of cattle were sent to England yearly from Scotland toward the close of the eighteenth century, and of these a considerable number were from far north districts. About 3000 were taken to the southern mar- kets by drovers " who droved them by land " all the way from the county of Caithness, arid probably 80001 to 9000 were " droved " yearly from Aberdeenshire.
Of the Highlander's way of turning out his cattle- we have the following description (dated about 1730) : — " About the latter end of August or the beginning of September the cattle are brought into good order by their summer feed, and the beef is ex- tremely sweet and succulent, which, I suppose, is owing in good part to their being reduced to such poverty in the spring, and made up again with new flesh. Now the drovers collect their herds and drive them to fairs and markets on the borders of the Lowlands, and some- times to the north of England ; and in their passage they pay a certain tribute proportionable to the number of cattle, to the owner of the territory they pass through, which is in lieu of all reckonings for grazing."'
74 Notes and Sketches.
The writer goes on to say that he had often from a distance seen great numbers of cattle driven along the sides of the mountains, but only once had been near at hand, when in a time of rain a drove of cattle were being taken over a wide river across which the drovers were ferried by a boat. " The cows were about fifty in number and took the water like spaniels ; and when they were in their drivers made a hideous cry to urge them forwards ; this they told me they did to keep the foremost of them from turning about, for in that case the rest would do the like, and then they would be in danger, especially the weakest of them, to be driven away and drowned by the torrent. I thought it a very odd sight to see so many noses and eyes just above water, and nothing of them more to be seen, for they had no horns, and upon the land they appeared like so many large Lincolnshire calves."
In the Lowlands the local business in cattle in each district was transacted at a few annual fairs— Lawrence Fair in the Garioch and Aikey Fair in Buchan were early established " trysts" in Aberdeenshire, And as the fairs were wide apart, in point of locality, and came but once in the season, the gathering of cattle at them was always large. If less wild and romantic than the cattle traffic in the Highlands, it was still a picturesque style of things as they gathered out here and there from upland glens ; the master, plaided and bonneted, riding his hairy pony, and one or two assistants equally hairy and hardy, tramping on afoot for many miles, and keeping the small drove of shaggy Highlanders jogging leisurely along, and picking up a livelihood by the way ; while the dwellers in the Lowlands came " their gate," from the haughs and braesides, with groups of black "hummlies," diversified by an occasional 41 bran'it" or " rigget" stirk ; or it might be a few horned beasts not indisposed to butt, and be otherwise domineering amongst their fellows. The roads were not very exactly defined, and fences were little known ;
Live Stock. 75
so that the cattle had moderately free access to pasture by the wayside, and occasionally to such cultivated crops as might happen to be within reach. Bridges were few and far between. Where burns and rivers had to be crossed, the cattle forded them, how deep or broad soever, and so did their drivers ; and when "spates" were on a "mishanter" would sometimes happen of a more or less serious kind. When the market was over, and the "drove" of eight, ten, or fifteen score made up for the journey, after the same fashion, to the dealer's pasturage ; or better still for their long and leisurely travel of days and weeks to Falkirk or Hallow Fair, it was a sight to see. The " drove," as it moved along, would stretch to nearly a mile in length, with here and there a rough " cowte" of a drover stalking away among the beasts stick in hand, and his wallet slung over his shoulder. And truly the " tops- man," who had the responsibility of looking after and guiding the whole to their destination needed no mean powers of generalship to do his work safely and well.
Up to the date of the Eebellion of 1745 cattle sent to the southern markets from the counties of Aberdeen and Banff were driven across the Eastern Grampians by tracks marked out from time immemorial by the conti- nuous tread of man and beast. The chief of these pri- mitive highways were the most easily accessible and least steep of the natural ravines among the hills ; and gener- ally these — from Tomintoul, by Corgarff, Crathie, and Braemar, to the Spital of Glenshee, Blairgowrie, and Perth ; from Ballater, by the Spital of Muick, to Clova, and Kirriemuir ; from Aboyne, by the Tanar, and Mount Keen, to Lochlee, and down by the Esk to Brechin ; from Kincardine O'Neil or Banchory-Ternan, across the Cairn o' Mount, to Fettercairn, and Brechin ; from Durris, by the Crine Corse to Drumlithie, and the Howe o' the Mearns ; from Aberdeen, by the Tollohill, and Causey Port, to Stonehaven. These primitive highways rose to elevations of from four hundred feet
76 Notes and Sketches.
to two thousand feet above sea level. In the post- Rebellion period, road-making was more systematically pursued ; and where formally constructed highways were laid out, the drover naturally followed the line of these, though the metalled surface was trying to the hoofs of his travel-worn charge. " Droving" cattle southward from the north and north-eastern counties continued to prevail for fully the first quarter of the present century ; and was gradually superseded by winter fattening of cattle for transmission, first by steamboat and latterly by railway direct to the London market.
CHAPTEE XL
COUNTRY FAIRS THEIR ORIGIN AND CHARACTER
AIKEY FAIR.
THE old country fairs had apparently been an institu- tion established by the Monks of the middle ages, with a view to facilitate the transaction of general business. And hence the fair came usually to be held on a saint's day. In degenerate times, indeed, it was frequently held on a Sunday. And at one time the fair was re- garded quite as much in the light of a rendezvous for indulgence in such rude games and wrestlings as are celebrated in "Chirst's Kirk o' the Green" — a poem with an appreciably northern smack about it, by whomso- ever written — as in that of a resort for the transaction of serious business. Hence such expressions as "Play Feersday" (Thursday), when the fair happened to be held on that day of the week, or " Play Friday," if it happened to be on a Friday ; the dominating idea Jieing amusement. The practice common in last century, of having fairs announced outside the kirk door after service on Sundays, with a comprehensive summary given by the " crier " of the more attractive articles likely to be found thereat, gave rise to the " byeword," that such and such a thing that seemed likely to become notoriously public was " like a cried fair."
An almost invariable accompaniment of certain of the fairs was the occurrence of party fights, or personal encounters between rustic athletes fond of testing their physical prowess. These encounters, which ordi- narily took place about the close of the fair, were suffi-
78 Notes and Sketches.
ciently brutal in character, the combatants often merci- lessly belabouring each other with cudgels. In no quarter perhaps were they so formidable or so systematically kept up as in the district of Cromar, where the periodical onsets between "the rough tykes of Tarland," and "theLeochel men" seem to have been as regular in their occurrence as the fairs in which the two parishes were interested ; the fight being understood always to end in one or other of the sides being driven off the field vanquished.
At the last century fair, the business transacted was of an exceedingly miscellaneous kind. Live stock was by no means the most important feature. All sorts of household furnishings — including chairs, stools, wooden ladles, " caups," and barrels and brewing "bowies," rough wicker " creels," and such like, were exhibited in quantity by the wrights and coopers and other artificers, so as the more strictly agricultural class might supply their needs in such matters. Even ploughs and harrows were taken to the fair for sale. On the other hand, those who tilled the soil had the wool of their small stocks of native sheep spun into yarn at home, and then converted into webs of " fingrams" by the weaver, to be taken to the fair and offered to such as would buy ; their customers, to a large extent, were itinerant "merchants," who picked up the fingrams at the annual fairs in Aberdeenshire, and then found a market for them in other parts of Scotland, or by getting them exported abroad. And after the decline of the trade in fingrams, when spinning worsted and knitting stockings for " the factory merchant," mainly engaged the atten- tion of women in the country, dealers in soft goods in. Aberdeen and the other county towns, found it worth while to shut shop for a day or two on the occurrence of some of the principal annual fairs, in order that they might cultivate business by exhibiting prints and other fabrics there alongside the stocks of the regular pack- men.
Country Fairs. 7&
Seventy or eighty years ago Aikey Fair, which is still held annually on Aikey Brae, in the parish of Old Deer, in Buchan, was the largest fair in the JSTorth of Scotland. A legendary account of its origin is to the effect that a packman of unknown antiquity, Aul' Aikey by name, in crossing the river Ugie, on stepping stones, a mile west of the ancient " Abbey of Deir, " dropped his pack. On fishing it out of the water, then slightly flooded, he proceeded some three hundred yards farther on to what is now known as Aikey Brae, which was then, as it still is, covered with short grass and heath. Here he spread out his goods to dry. The contents of the pack consisted of prints and woollens, some of them being of gaudy colours. A good many people passed during the day, and being attracted by his stock bought up all the articles in it. Aul' Aikey was charmed with the success which followed what he had regarded as a calamity — the accidental soaking of his pack. Apolo- gising to his purchasers for the meagerness of his stock he promised to show them something better worth look- ing at if they would meet him next year at the same time and place. He kept his word, while the report of his gains brought others with goods for sale to the same place, and so traffic gradually increased year by year till Aikey Brae, from its central position, became a general mart for the large and populous district of Buchan.
Doubtless the story of the packman is fully as pic- turesque as credible. But be that as it may, the hill- side called Aikey Brae, where Aikey Fair is held yearly on the Wednesday after the 19th of July, slopes to the north down to the Ugie, while between the market stance and the river runs eastward from New Maud Junction, the Peterhead branch of the Buchan and Formartine Railway. The Brae affords an exten- sive view of the country to the west, north, and east, including the fine grounds of Pitfour, with the moul- dering ruins of the Abbey of Deir nestling amid the
SO Notes and Sketches.
orchard gardens of the same seat, the grounds of Aden, and half-a-dozen miles to the north, the highest ground in Buchan — Mormond Hill — with the noted figure of a white horse occupying an acre of the surface of the south slope of the hill, the space within the outline of the animal being covered with white quartzose stones.
When their great annual fair approached the dwel- lers in Buchan, eastward and westward, began to bestir themselves in preparation for the most import- ant gathering of the year. On the day preceding the fair cattle were to be seen converging from all sides to fields within easy reach of the stance. Dealers and others from a distance came, all on horseback. Thus at the ford of the Ebrie, near Arnage, some eight miles off, as many as a hundred horsemen would pass on the evening before the fair. They rode not unfrequently at full gallop. Bets on the comparative merits of their horses sometimes gave rise to racing in this sort ; but there was, in addition, the prevalent notion that it involved a sort of slur to allow your neighbour to pass you on the road to the fair. On the day of the fair fifty or sixty acres of Aikey Brae were covered with human beings, cattle, horses, and various kinds of merchandise.
Aikey Fair day was regarded as the great summer holiday ; and both old and young flocked to it. In- deed, it was the boast to have seen so many fairs. " Old Cairnadaillie," who died at the age of ninety- six, affirmed that he had been at ninety-one successive fairs at Aikey Brae, having been first carried there in his mother's arms. As many as 10,000 persons are said to have been sometimes present, all attired in their Sunday best. The men appeared in the old-fashioned, home-spun, woven, and tailored coat and vest, with big pockets and big buttons, knee breeches and hose, all made of the wool of sheep reared at home. They wore shoes with large buckles ; and some of the rustic dandies came dressed
Country Fairs. 81
in white trousers and vest. The women also were in their " braws," and those of the fair sex who could afford it appeared in white. They generally wore high- crowned gipsy mutches. Then, as now, in matters of dress, the common folk trode on the heels of the gentry. The latter made a point of attending the fair, and several carriages might always be seen at it. The traffic at Aikey Fair, as at other annual fairs of the period, included cattle, horses, sheep, merchandise, and chap-book literature of no very pretentious cha- racter. There was always a wonderful supply of " carvy " and coriander sweeties wherewith the lads might treat the lasses. The shows and amusements at the fair were of a very simple kind. The pipers from the country around assembled, and often a dance would be improvised on the green-sward. As time wore on there appeared the " slicht o' han' men" to divide the attention of the idle and curious.
Cattle and horses chiefly were the animals exposed for sale at the fair, very few sheep being reared in the districts around it. Most of the cattle sold in the fair were driven south by Savock of Deer, Tarves, Inverurie, Echt, Banchory, the Cairn o' Month, &c., to be fat- tened on the rich pastures of England. Seventy years ago as many as 6000 beasts are said to have passed through Tarves in a continuous drove, a mile long, on their way south on the day after the fair. In 1836, however, only 2200 cattle were counted on this road on the same day, while at the present day not over 250 in all appear in the fair, though in 1876 as many as 600 horses were shown.
The merchandise sold in Aikey Fair about 1800 consisted chiefly of webs of sacking, bed-tick, a variety of prints often of gaudy colours, cottons in the shape of moleskins and corduroys, of which the outer gar- ments of working men were then mostly made ; wool and yarn were also sold in large quantities. On the day before the fair there used to be a large wholesale
82 Notes and Sketches.
business done in woollen cloths among merchants and others. About the period indicated there were, as now, tents in the fair for supplying refreshments. Such a thing as whisky for sale was unknown, the liquor being confined to home-brewed ale, which was much drunk, though it was rare to see any one tipsy.
CHAPTER XII.
ROADS AND ROAD-MAKING STATUTE LABOUR — MILITARY
ROADS FIRST TURNPIKES.
IN no department of social economics has progress been more signally manifested within the comparatively recent past than in the department of roads and means of locomotion. It has been said, and truly enough > that the past half-century, or thereby, has witnessed a greater advance in the facilities for rapid locomotion than all the intervening centuries back to the era of the Pharaohs had witnessed. It is just the difference be- tween the speed of the horse going by " posts," as was done in the days of Ahasuerus, king of Medo-Persia, and the speed of the express train in the days of Vic- toria, Queen of Great Britain. At the former date, they could no doubt keep up to at least eight miles an hour on a long journey ; and when George Stephenson practically tested his "Socket" engine in A. D. 1829, little if anything more had been accomplished in the way of accelerated speed ; and as George had occasion to know it was not deemed credible that the speed mentioned could be safely increased to twelve miles an hour. During all the years that have elapsed since the present century began, however, the country has been traversed, to a moderate extent at least, by fairly passable roads. Over a large part of the eighteenth century it was very different. Passable roads were scarcely known ; and the bulk of traffic of the heavier sort that went on (as well as mere personal touring) was almost incredibly small. Think of " the whole intercourse between Edinburgh and Glasgow" being
84. Notes and Sketches.
carried on by means of "ten or twelve pack horses going and returning once a week," as we are told was the case, so late as about 1760 !
It was not till 1810 that that " most eminent of road surveyors," Mr. Loudon Macadam, succeeded in getting public attention called to his improved system of road- making, by first securing the support of the Board of Agriculture through its President, Sir John Sinclair, and in virtue of that support obtaining the approval of a Parliamentary committee. And it was several years after till macadamised roads came into anything like general use. Before Macadam there was General Wade ; but apart from the military roads constructed under his direction, and up to fully the date when these were " made," " the communication by land" in Scot- land was " along paths which necessity had traced out, that were marked only by the footsteps of the beasts that travelled along them, unless it was in a few bad passes through bogs that could not be avoided, where a rough and narrow causeway of stones badly laid together afforded at least a solid footing to the beasts, though a very disagreeable and dangerous path to those who were obliged to use it." Such is the description of a writer, speaking of what came almost within his own personal recollection.
In the county of Aberdeen, Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk, who began his operations as an agricultural improver about 1716, was among the first to move on the subject of road-making, as of many other improve- ments. In describing the condition of his paternal estate at the date mentioned, he says : — " At that time there was not one acre upon the whole esteat enclosed, nor any timber upon it, but a few elm, cycamore, and ash about a small kitchen garden adjoining to the house, and some straggling trees at some of the farm yards, with a small cops wood, not inclosed and dwarfish and broused by sheep and cattle. All the farms ill-disposed and mixed,, different persons having alternated ridges,
Roads and Road-making. 85
not one wheel carriage on the esteat nor indeed any one road that would allow it." " In 1720 I could not in chariote get my wife from Aberdeen to TVfonymusk," wrote Sir Archibald. Macadam had yet to come, and the causeways had evidently been neglected. The question of road reform was just about to be taken up in earnest, however, and for probably the first time on any com- prehensive plan. In that very year, 1720, after due advertisement " att the several paroch churches," the Aberdeenshire county gentlemen " met, and having read the Act of Parliament of 1719, relative to the Highways and Bridges, they unanimously agreed ' That the whole Highways and Bridges, within the said county, should be repaired, amended, and built with all convenient diligence.'" And, to defray the charges that would ensue, they agreed to stent themselves at the rate of 10s. Scots on each ,£100 of valued rent ; a scale of rating which continued in force for many years thereafter. The Commissioners appear to have approved of persons in each parish as " overseers," to look after the roads ; but something more definite was needed ; and in 1721 Alexander Jaffray of Kingswells was ap- pointed " General Surveyor of all the highways, cause- ways, and bridges within the countie, who is to ryde and run the same, and make report what bridges or causeways may be necessary to be built or repaired within the county." His salary was 200 merks, with " half-a-crown of ryding charges for each day he has served, or shall serve the shire, anent the reparation of the said highways." The expenditure for riding charges was afterwards limited to «£3 sterling a-year. It was the Surveyor's duty in reporting on the bridges and causeways, to state the cases which "could not be suffi- ciently wrought by the labouring men in the respective parishes," and where consequently the services of masons and other artificers were required.*
*For statement relative to Early Aberdeenshire Roads, Post Towns, &c., see Appendix (2).
86 Notes and Sketches.
This state of matters, substantially, continued for a number of years with a moderate amount of success.
A description that would apply to the state of the country a very little before the date at which Duke William of Cumberland passed through Aberdeen and Banffshire, to fight the rebels at Culloden, is to this effect — " There was no road in the county of Aberdeen on which wheels of any kind could be dragged ; weighty burdens of every kind were of course carried on horse- back." And when the county gentlemen had begun to form roads in the different districts, their engineering and constructive skill was not of the highest, any more than the labour they could command was efficient or heartily given. The Commissioners of Supply were empowered by statute (1719), to call upon every house- holder to give six days' work in the year toward the making and maintenance of the roads. And when they had decided to exact the " statute labour " more rigorously, which they did soon after road reform had been taken up as a practical question, they would employ the precentor to read out a notice on Sunday from the "lateran" immediately before the benediction; or engage the bellman to utter a " scry" as the kirk " scailt," whereby the people were asked to " take notice" that their services were needed at such a place on such a day, to work under orders of this or the other J.P. at road-making. But the people did not see why the roads that were good enough for their fathers should not be good enough for them • and they hated and scamped the statute labour, so that the man's six days frequently came to yield little more than one good day's work ; a circumstance which ultimately led to the in- voluntary labour being generally "commuted," for a modified money payment. In commuting, they reckoned the man's labour at 3d. a-day. Thus, his six days' statutory work would amount to eighteenpence. And that was the sum at which they ordinarily let him off. As ninepence was paid for a road labourer with
Roads and Road-making. 87
some " can " in him, and a little heart to the business, two days' work was thus secured ; so that the sum exacted would seem to have been fairly equivalent to the services that had been given.
How averse the people were to performing their statute labour, and how little alive to the importance of good roads, is curiously illustrated by such facts as that, while warrant was granted to " poynd deficients con- form to law," at least as early as 1739 no amendment seems to have taken place in their conduct up to 1755, when it was agreed that each Aberdeenshire parish should repair its own roads " as ane expedient to try if the roads will be repaired without commuting the labourer's money, and charge each man in each parish a sixpence in place of the labour they are obliged to give by law." The schoolmasters were instructed to make out lists of all the persons in their parishes liable to statute labour (nearly all the male population between fifteen and seventy years of age, except the ministers and themselves). The precentors were " ordered" not only to announce the statute labour days from the " lateran," but to certify the County Clerk where no application had been made to them on the subject, fail- ing which, they would be " prosecuted forthwith as contemners of the law." The ministers were "entreated to prompt all concerned to forward so good a work that they may be the agreeable instruments of preventing the disagreeable necessity of imposing or incurring the several penalties."
The highways made by statute labour were of this sort — " though the principal roads have been in general lined out so as to mark their direction, and some stones and other obstructions removed out of the way and bogs filled up, yet the roads still continue to be in such a miserable state that unless it be for a few months in summer it is impossible to drive a carriage upon them with more than half an ordinary load." " What has contributed to this evil," we are again told, " is that
88 Notes and Sketches.
when the roads began to be formed gentlemen were not sufficiently attentive to carry them in the most proper direction ; they generally followed as nearly as they could the old course of the road ; and as bogs had been originally the most dreaded obstructions, to avoid these, the roads had been in general carried along the high grounds where they could be come at ; so that in many cases they were carried a considerable way about to shun a vale and get up a hill. After wheels began to be employed, it was found that the pulls going uphill were very inconvenient, to avoid which it has been necessary, in many instances, to abandon a road that had been smoothed at a considerable expense, and to make a new one in a more proper direction."
This description applies to the Aberdeenshire roads of the second half of the eighteenth century. These roads which were simply narrow, unmetalled tracks, with ditches cut along the sides, the hollows filled, and large stones removed, but rarely causewayed, speedily became a muddy slough when the weather was wet. And as early as 1741 we find the recommendation to try a layer of " small stones and chingle" (a rough approach to macadamising) " in time coming" on some of the roads. Six inches depth of this had to be applied, and the fact duly certified before " the usual allowance" would be made to those who were charged with the maintenance of the road.
Directly after the Rebellion of 1745 Government roads and bridges for wheeled vehicles began to be systematically engineered and constructed, the roads having a hard bottom of stones. The first two lines of modern road across the Eastern Grampians were made by the military. These are the road from Brechin by Fettercairn, the Cairn o' Mount, and Potarch Bridge, to Alford, Clatt, and Huntly, made about 1746 ; and the road (named after General Wade) from the Spital of Glen- shee, by Castleton of Braemar, Crathie, Gaynshiel, Corgarlf, and Tomintoul, to the Spey near Grantown,
;
Roads and Road-making. 89
finished in 1754. Such roads as these, made "by soldiers, had a sort of special recognition as the King's Highways.
The ordinary roads continued still to be of a very primitive sort. In June, 1751, at the Aberdeen County Meeting, " Meldrum" produced a letter " from my lady Dowager of Forbes, representing that the public road 'twixt Inverury and Castle Forbes is quite impassible in sevrall parts thereof, particularly that part 'twixt Pittodery's dykes and Overhall, which is dangerous to pass, especially with wheel carriages : and that lately her ladyship's chaise had stuck there and broke the graith : and therefore craving the com- missioners to allow her a share of the highway money for helping the road, and power to call out the country people to give their-assistance : which being con- sidered, the meeting thought the request of my lady Forbes just and reasonable," and ordered accordingly. In 1756, an Act was passed by the Aberdeenshire Commissioners for making all public highways "20 foot in breadth, and where broader they are to be kept so." Several counties, it is said, had resolved that the roads should be at least twenty feet in width " over and above the ditches on either side," which were to be five feet. Many of the roads and highways in this shire, it is added, "are represented as being very narrow, and will not permit wheel carriages to pass by one another, or even loaded horses with curracks and creels." The roads were directed to be raised in the middle so as water might run off them, or otherwise they would be reported to the Lords of Justiciary " as disagreeable to law, and the parishes they belonged to would have to make them over again." Tenants who had arable land adjacent to public roads, were enjoined to make " head rigs next to the highway," and to cease the abuse that prevailed of ploughing across the roads.
The date of the oldest Scotch Turnpike Act is 1750,
90 Notes and Sketches.
but it was not till close on the end of the century that the system came north of the Dee.
In October 1769, the question of turnpikes came up for the first time at the Aberdeen County Meeting, in consequence of a scheme being " presently in agitation among gentlemen of the neighbouring county of Kincardine, for an application to Parliament to have turnpike roads in that county." The meeting declared " they were not presently ripe to give their opinion upon the expediency and consequences of the plan pro- posed." Before the year was out, however, they unanimously resolved to oppose the introduction of turnpikes into Kincardine county, unless the road 'twixt the Bridge of Dee and Stonehaven were kept free of tolls : the town of Aberdeen which had been equally moved on the subject," having made offer to maintain the road in question by calling out the statute labour. This question of turnpikes was the subject of much discussion a quarter of a century later, a draft Turnpike and Commutation Eoad Bill being at last ordered to be printed in 1794. This Bill, which provided for the levying of a money pay- ment in lieu of statute labour became an Act of Parlia- ment in 1795. The turnpike system came into operation in Aberdeenshire three years after, by the construction of the Deeside Turnpike, in 1798. This was followed by the Ellon and Peterhead turnpike in 1799. Most of the other roads of this class in the county were made during the first twenty-four years of the present century.
The current ideas on the subject of roads when im- provement in that direction began, were somewhat conflicting. The minister of a West Highland parish says, a consequence of the formation of General Wade's Highland Roads and Bridges, was, " that the mind expanded by degrees to embrace within its grasp people of other denominations, and to weaken that prejudice which it conceived in favour of an individual and a
Roads and Road-making. 91
particular clan." But then the cost of forming and maintaining these did not come so directly home to the community. With roads of the turnpike and " commutation " class it was different. In some quar- ters it was averred that nobody entertained a doubt of the advantage of a turnpike " since, at least, three times as much weight can be drawn in a carriage as was sufficient to load it before they were made." Still the engineering of those who lined them out, was not always perfect ; even the turnpikes were too often " conducted over the summit of every eminence in their course, when with a little judgment and atten- tion a direction might have been found equally near and incomparably more easy and convenient/' And some could boast that "there are no turnpikes in these parts, and none are wanted;" others main- tained that it was a mistake to commute the statute labour into a money payment. If they had divided the districts properly, and made each small community make and mend their own particular roads, they argued, it would have brought the matter so closely home to their practical feelings that, in place, of slothful and slovenly labour, they would have been incited to give something more than measure, seeing themselves and no other would have the main if not the exclusive benefit of it. The experience of the county of Aberdeen, under the experiment of 1755,. would, however, seem to teach a contrary lesson.
CHAPTEE XIII.
IMPROVED LOCOMOTION — THE EARLY MAILS AND POST- BOYS— THE EDINBURGH FLY — SCORGIE'S CARAVAN — THE ABERDEENSHIRE CANAL.
ON the 8tli day of May, 1765, when the Magistrates of Aberdeen went forth in state to meet the Justiciary Lords coming to the town on circuit, they, for the first time, rode in chaises in place of riding on horse- back, as they had always been wont to do before. In the previous year a lady had managed to ride in a chaise from Aberdeen to Finzean, over a very indiffer- ent road ; and the fact was reckoned sufficiently not- able to be recorded in her diary. In going over the Cairn o' Mount she took to horseback, and passed along what she describes as a well-made road. Up to the close of the eighteenth century, riding on horseback was the ordinary mode of performing a journey, a lady, when she travelled, frequently sitting behind a gentle- man on the same horse. And the Aberdeen shop- keepers would talk of being treated by the " English riders, " which simply meant the equestrian bagmen, who visited them periodically in the way of business. Up to about the middle of the eighteenth century, the mail occupied three days in its journey from Edin- burgh to Aberdeen. It came through Fife, crossing the ferries on the Forth and Tay; the messenger pass- ing his first night out at Dundee, and his second at Montrose. About 1750 an improved system was adopted, post-boys being provided to carry the mails stage by stage on fresh horses, to all the principal towns
Improved Locomotion. 93
of Scotland, while foot-runners went on the less im- portant routes. In October, 1755, a regular post was established thrice a week between Aberdeen and Inver- ness, the time consumed in the journey by the post- boys being twenty-four hours. Eight or ten years later the London mail reached Aberdeen on the sixth day after leaving the metropolis.
The establishment of public conveyances for passen- gers was a separate matter from the carriage of the mails. It was not till 1758, when the population of Glasgow had risen to about thirty-five thousand, that a conveyance drawn by four horses, and accomplishing the journey in twelve hours, including stoppage for dinner, was successfully established between that city and Edinburgh. There was no other stage coach on that important line of road for thirty years thereafter, nor did any acceleration in speed take place during that time.
At their April meeting of 1789, the Aberdeen county gentlemen had before them a letter from the Post Office, relative to " putting the public roads and bridges thereon, by which the mail coach is to pass, in a proper state of repair." With a view to forward the matter as much as lay in their power, they appointed their Clerk to transmit a copy of the letter to the districts of Aberdeen, Garioch, and Turriff, with an earnest recommendation to attend to the contents of it, and " apply the whole statute labour within their bounds, for this year, towards repairing the public roads through which the mail coach is to pass ; and also to cause erect mile stones on the public road betwixt Aberdeen and Banff." The equestrian posts went along by Oldmeldrum to Banff. Foot-runners carried the bags from Oldmeldrum to Old Rain, and Huntly, and from Fochabers to Keith. At this time it was calculated that there would be 17,912 men in the county liable for statute labour, and 1000 horses and carts that might be called out.
94 Notes and Sketches.
The business of facilitating mail arrangements was not quickly disposed of, for in 1794 the county had represented to it the great inconvenience suffered over all the north of Scotland by detention of the north mail at Edinburgh " for near ten hours," with the result of its arriving at Aberdeen at night. The demand made on behalf of town and county was, that the mails be sent on from Edinburgh " within three hours of arrival there." Two years after, the complaint still was that all the north mails lay at Edinburgh from five or six in the morning till one or two in the afternoon — a delay equal to two and a-half days in the week, or " a space of time equal to four months and ten days in the year " during which the mails " lay dormant " at Edinburgh. In October, 1796, it was intimated that the Postmaster-General had agreed to run a mail coach from Edinburgh to Montrose " on and from 5th April next," and that the coach " would be forwarded to Aberdeen how soon the turnpike road was com- pleted from Montrose." It does not appear that this promise was carried out so fully as had been expected, for in May, 1797, there was a proposal for the ill-used northern counties to unite in an application to Parlia- ment on the subject. But at last, in July 1798, a mail coach, drawn by four horses, commenced to run through between Edinburgh and Aberdeen, performing the journey in about twenty-one hours. The time required previously by the post-boys was thirty-five or thirty- six hours.
The "Aberdeen and Edinburgh Fly" and the " Strathmore Diligence " were two of the earliest stage conveyances southward from Aberdeen, and which supplied the wants of the travelling public in the latter years of the last and first years of the pre- sent century — the smartly equipped " Defiance " came later. The very full particulars printed oh the ticket of each passenger by the Fly may be given. They are taken from a ticket endorsed on the reverse side,
Improved Locomotion. 95
"A gentleman, to Edinburgh. Monday, 12th Nov., 1781. Paid, £2 Os. Od. A. G., Clerk":—
THE ABERDEEN AND EDINBURGH FLY, BY STONEHAVEN, LAURENCEKIRK, BRECHIN, &c.
SETS out from Mr. SMITH'S NEW INN, Aberdeen, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 4 o'clock in the morning : arrives at Edin- burgh next day to dinner ; and from Mr. ROBERTSON'S BLACK BULL INN, Edinburgh, every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, at 9 o'clock in the morning ; arrives at Aberdeen next evening. The passengers both ways lyat Mr. JOHN CAMPBELL'S, Innkeeper, Perth, the first night, from whence the above Fly sets out every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, at 5 o'clock in the morning, and arrives at Edinburgh same day to dinner ; and for Aberdeen every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, same hour, and arrives at night.
Tickets between Edinburgh and Perth 11s. ; ditto between Perth and Aberdeen, 29s. ; — uptakes on the road to pay 4d. per mile, each allowed 14 Ib. of luggage ; all above to pay 2d. halfpenny per Ib. for the whole distance, or in proportion to the miles they go.
Passengers at Edinburgh for Aberdeen must apply before 12 o'clock the proceeding days of the Fly's setting out, as, after that hour, seats will be given out to Perth, &c. if applied for.
Tickets for Edinburgh must be taken out at Aberdeen, before 3 in the Afternoon, of the day before the setting out of the Fly, as after that time, tickets will be given out for any intermediate distance.
Good convenience for boxes, parcels, &c. which will be regularly entered, and delivered on arrival. Carriage of goods the whole distance, 2d. half- penny per Ib. ; small parcels [7 Ib. or under], to pay Is. 6d. each. The pro- prietors will not be accountable for valuable papers, cash, jewels, or plate, and those that send goods must observe to pack them sufficient to undergo the friction of the carriage, otherwise they cannot answer for damages.
N. B. The Flies for Newcastle and London set out from the Black Bull every day, as usual, and from the George and Blue Boar, Holburn, London, for Edinburgh ; likewise a Diligence for Glasgow, &c. and from Mr. Dunbar's, innkeeper, Glasgow, every day, for Edinburgh.
§§§ It is intreated of the passengers not to allow the Drivers to take up foot-travellers between stages.
The Strathmore Diligence ran 'twixt Aberdeen and Perth every week day. One prominent advantage of travelling by it, too, was that passengers for Edinburgh and Glasgow had "the benefit of a night's rest at Perth," and were " forwarded next morning by coaches" which left that place daily for the two cities named.
The first serious effort to establish a public con- veyance to northward of Aberdeen seems to have been made soon after the construction of the Inverurie
96 Notes and Sketches.
turnpike, by an enterprising citizen named Alexander Scorgie. Post horses and post chaises had hitherto been the recognised means of locomotion on long journeys. The plodding craftsman of the hamlet, smith, or tailor — or the pack merchant — did not boggle at a tramp of twenty to thirty miles on foot to " the toon " when necessary ; and for " gentlemen " who could afford to travel in a different style, country innkeepers had begun to let it be known that they could " accommodate," in more or less, those of them who might be disposed to make their hostelries a stage, and who happened to need horses or " a steady driver." Mr. Scorgie's idea was a bolder one. He started a passenger " Caravan " to travel on stated days 'twixt George Street, Aberdeen, and the house of John Norris, tailor, West Wynd, Huntly. The Caravan was a covered conveyance. In its original form it stood on two wheels, and was drawn by one horse. The covering was of painted canvas ; and four passengers might find accommodation inside, their faces looking forward. Outside, the driver sat on a flat board at one side in front, with accommodation for a passenger on the opposite end of the board.
In September, 1807, after he had run to and from Huntly for a while, successfully it would seem, Mr. Scorgie announced that " for the more general con- venience of the public," he found it necessary to extend his journey as far as Keith ; and he would go thither accordingly from Aberdeen every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, returning on the intervening days. At Keith, saddle horses and gigs were pro- vided for the conveyance of passengers going to Fochabers, Elgin, and Forres, "where places may be taken for Scorgie's Caravan going to Aberdeen." The public are further informed that, in his anxiety to give every satisfaction, Mr. Scorgie had "an entire new and commodious Caravan in preparation," which, adopting his own description, was "upon an improved
Improved Locomotion. 97
principle calculated for greater ease to the passengers than is to be found in any other such vehicle." And he flatters himself that the new Caravan would "prove little inferior to a post chaise for convenience and pleasant riding — being adorned in the front and sides with full glass windows, and elegantly padded in the inside ; and full room for six inside passengers and two outside." In short, "no expense" had been spared to render the improved Caravan such as to merit the approbation of those who might honour its proprietor with their favours. In closing his announce- ment, Mr. Scorgie assures "ladies and gentlemen wish- ing to send youth of either sex " to any of the places visited by the Caravan, that they might "depend upon his most tender care and attention in conveying them in safety to the places directed."
This improved Caravan could boast of four wheels, and was drawn by two horses driven tandem. It was specified to give full room inside for six passengers, but would accommodate eight at a pinch. In addition to being padded inside, the Caravan was done up out- side in bold black and yellow colours, with regular " dicky" and space for a passenger on the box seat. The " insides " gained admittance to their seats by a door behind ; and when, as would occasionally happen, the proprietor-driver — a rather fussy little man, as the rustics deemed him, with a cap and big " peak " to protect him in all weathers — had no passengers, or but few, he too would take his seat inside, and contrive to steer his team through an opening in front. The pace of the vehicle was a slow trot, hardly exceeding five miles an hour on an average. But the roads were none of the best; and in the earlier days of the Caravan, at any rate, the hours of arrival and departure were by no means rigidly adhered to. For in addition to waiting any reasonable space of time at starting for an expected "fare," Mr. Scorgie, on being apprised that a possible passenger, willing to pay the hire, 8
98 Notes and Sketches.
might be got by diverging a few miles from his wonted route, did not scruple to make the necessary detour, correspondingly lengthening both the journey and the time occupied by it.
Whether, and how far, the increased exertions of the proprietor of the only original Caravan in providing an improved service, may have been stimulated by threatened opposition would be a curious inquiry. Only a week after the announcement of Scorgie's extended operations, Alexander George, a " chaise letter " in Huntly, and lessee it is believed of the Gordon Arms Inn there, announced that he, too, had commenced running a caravan between Aberdeen and Huntly. He also ran on alternate days, but so as the caravans must have crossed, in place of maintaining a side by side competition. The Huntly chaise letter stated that his conveyance was "fitted up in such a manner as to afford every comfort and convenience to passengers, and inferior to no vehicle of the kind travelling in this part of the country ;" and he charged the moderate fare of " seven shillings the whole way, and any inter- mediate distance in proportion."
The rival Caravan men had been justly regarded as postal celebrities ; and the name of each lived up to probably quite the average " immortality" secured to men whose deeds have made them locally famous. The tradition even yet remains of how the Marquis of Huntly, afterwards " Duke George" (of Gordon), wanting to reach Pitmachie on a day of smart snow- storm, would trust to nobody but Alexander George to post him through the wild and dreary Glens of Foudland. George acted post-boy to his Grace ac- cordingly ; and on the return journey, having stopped at Bainshole, a small hostelry in the Glens, for refresh- ment, the Duke was surprised to find a pair of fresh horses turned out, wherewith to resume his journey without loss of time. " Please your lordship, this is my stick o' help," said the enterprising chaise letter
Improved Locomotion. 99
in response to the Duke's admiring exclamation at witnessing arrangements so much in advance of the period. The story conies to us also from living lips, of how on a very stormy day, when Scorgie had reached Pitmachie, long a well known coaching stage, some one put to him the question, " Foo 11 ye win through the Glens in sic a nicht ? " The proprietor of the Caravan showed his mettle in the reply, "I'll gae throu in coorse." And the saying became crystallised into a local " bye word" — "I'll dee't in coorse; as Carrie, gaed throu the Glens."
It was not till 1811 that regular mail coaches were established between Aberdeen and Inverness.
In the month of June, 1805, when the Inverurie turnpike had been in use five years, an alternative medium of communication between Aberdeen and that royal burgh was established by the opening of the Aberdeenshire Canal, which, at the time of its con- struction, was reckoned rather a stupendous work.* On the opening day the committee of management " embarked" at the Inverurie bason (named Port-Elphin- stone in honour of a leading promoter) in a barge "handsomely decorated." They carried a gun at the prow of the barge to signal their approach to the delighted crowds who had assembled at different points to witness the accomplished triumph of inland naviga- tion. And their gaily decked vessel, " The Countess of Kintore," with its living freight, having completed the voyage of fifteen miles in seven and a half hours, was, amid general jubilation, safely moored at the bason at Aberdeen Quay. Two miles an hour or thereby might do for heavy goods ; but it was clear that a speed considerably less than the normal walking pace was in- adequate for passenger traffic ; and thus, in the summer of 1807, we find a passage boat " covered and neatly fitted up for the purpose of conveying passengers and
* For statement relative to Aberdeenshire Canal, 'see Appendix; (3).
100 Notes and Sketches.
light goods " set agoing. It returned to Aberdeen the same day as it left, but did not at first ply every day. The fare was two shillings to Inverurie, and twopence per mile for intermediate distances.
CHAPTEE XIV.
EARLY AGRICULTURAL IMPROVERS— SIR ARCHIBALD GRANT OF MONYMUSK — IMPROVERS IN THE MEARNS — BARCLAY OF URY.
ALTHOUGH the Society of Improvers in the Know- ledge of Agriculture had, as already stated, been formed in 1723, and individuals among the proprietary class had soon after that date made creditable efforts to- wards improvement in farming, it was not till fully the middle of the century that any movement of much consequence took place in that direction in any of the north-eastern counties of Scotland ; nor, indeed, over a wider area. From the Union downward, to 1745, Scotland "experienced a state of extraordinary langour and debility. Her trade was inconsiderable, her agri- culture in the most wretched state of neglect, and her manufactures nothing. Her people were oppressed, abject, and dispirited ; her nobles poor, proud, and haughty, even to a proverb, and there seemed to be no hope of ever seeing a spirit of active industry excited in this nation." Dr. Anderson, whose words these are, seems to think that the abolition of heritable jurisdictions, after the date of the last Rebellion, re- moved the main obstacle to improvement.
The first experiment in Scotland in cultivating pota- toes in the field was made at Kilsyth, in 1739. An entire half acre was planted, and many persons came from great distances to see the extraordinary novelty. But it was not till about 1760 that the potato was ge- nerally cultivated, even in gardens ; and, for twenty
- 102 Notes and Sketches.
years thereafter, it was not greatly in use as an article of food in the North of Scotland. The turnip, which had received earlier attention in Norfolk, seems to have been introduced into Aberdeenshire about the year 1750. One of the Old Statistical writers says, " Mr. Burnett of Kemnay is said to have been the first farmer in the county of Aberdeen who raised turnips in the fields ;" but he gives no date. The first time turnips were seen in Kincardineshire was about 1754; and ten years thereafter, in 1764, they were still so great a rarity — half an acre being deemed a large plot — that they were sold, by the few who grew them in small quantities, at the rate of a penny the stone weight as kitchen vegetables.
Imported grass seeds had been sown in but very few cases earlier than 1750. It was only about that date that they began to be kept for sale in a few shops in Aberdeen. Previously hay had been little known to the farmer, and, where known at all, chiefly in the form of indigenous meadow grass, dried more or less skilfully, and not too succulent at its best. The stall food of the poor pot-bellied " garrons " (horses) con- sisted, to no inconsiderable extent, of dried thistles — a plant mistakenly understood to be the special prero- gative of the ass !
The name of Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk, in Aberdeenshire, has been already mentioned. In all schemes of improvement he was prominent, and one special part of his operations was planting wood. Dr. Anderson says Sir Archibald assured him " that he alone had planted during his own lifetime upwards of 48,000,000 of trees, and he lived several years after that, and sent me word about two months after I saw him that he had in that time planted 200,000 more." Dr. Anderson expresses his belief that " no other man ever existed on the globe who had planted so many trees." The Earl of Fife and General Gordon of Fyvie planted largely, General Gordon as many
Early Agricultural Improvers. 103
as 3,000,000 trees in a single enclosure. James Farquharson of Invercauld, in the years from 1750 to 1806, is said to have planted 16,000,000 firs and 2,000,000 larches on his property in Braemar, through which he constructed more than twenty miles of roads. Toward the close of the eighteenth century, the culti- vation of timber trees seems to have become an object of very general attention, as testified by the statement (in 1794) of the writer just cited, that "there is scarcely a private gentleman in Aberdeenshire who owns an estate of £500 or £600 'a year who has not planted many hundred thousand trees."
The Earl of Findlater, who, for several years before his death in 1776, resided constantly at Cullen House, was the first to attempt improvements in agriculture and manufactures in Banffshire. He brought an over- seer from England, and cultivated a farm near Banff in a way then quite new to the district. He introduced turnip husbandry, and granted long leases to his ten- ants on condition that they should enclose the lands within a certain period, sow grass seeds, and adopt summer fallowing, to a certain extent, within the first five years of their final occupancy. As early as 1752 he established a bleachfield at Deskford -, and at a later period a manufactory of linen and damask cloth at Cullen, both of which enterprises fell into decay when household spinning ceased.
Mr. George Eobertson, in his General View of the Agriculture of Kincardineshire (1807) states that about the year 1760 " there arose in this county a constel- lation of cultivators, which dispelling the mist that till then obscured the horizon of agricultural science, threw out all at once such a splendid light over the labours of husbandry as has not been exceeded, and perhaps hardly equalled even, to the present day." The detailed statements given by Mr. Eobertson bear out his elo- quent figure very well. And one phase of the new move- ment here too seems to have been " a strong bias for
104 Notes and Sketches.
planting," inasmuch as during the last quarter of the century, probably 10,000 acres, previously bare and bleak enough, had been planted in forest trees.
In the case of a great many proprietors and tenants, too, in the Mearns, the spirit of general improvement seems to have moved strongly. Beginning at the north side we are told, for example, that there was not a more " haggard or uncultivated spot " in the whole country than the estate of Glassel. There were not over 30 acres of it " into which a plough could have entered." In the course of some years, 150 Scots acres had been improved, the enormous quantities of stones taken off the surface serving to form " consumption " dykes, from 12 to 16 feet thick, and many hundred yards in length. The remaining 400 acres of unre- claimed land were planted, and all this was carried out by the proprietor, Mr. Baxter, sending instruc- tions personally down from London. The estate of Durris was held on lease by Mr. John Innes, Sheriff Substitute, who carried out very extensive improve- ments towards the close of the century. He made, at his own cost, a road " equal to any turnpike, " running through the property from east to west, seven miles in length, besides promoting forma- tion of the turnpike to Stonehaven and making other necessary roads. He erected a number of improved farm-steadings and cottages, and reclaimed at great cost 451 Scots acres, sub-dividing and fencing it, besides enclosing other 2500 acres. He planted 740 acres of muir ground, and built about 50 miles of stone dykes ; and all this in seven years, the result being to increase the rental from £1000 to £2500, with the prospect of its soon reaching £3000. Then we have such instances as that of Alexander Walker, tenant of the farm of Auquhiries, who not only laid out and cultivated his farm in a style far in advance of his time, but planted forest trees on the barren knolls and waste corners to such an extent, that in
Early Agricultural Improvers. 105
1796, when the lease expired, " the value of the wood which was then paid to his heirs amounted to ,£500."
Mr. Silver of Netherley, an old West India planter, who died in 1791 at the age of eighty-two, trenched and drained 150 Scots acres, some of it at a cost of .£50 an acre. He imported lime for manure to the reclaimed land, which for some years, for lack of roads and wheeled vehicles, was brought six miles from Stonehaven "in sacks and creels on horses' backs." Mr. Graham of Morphie, was the first to introduce " broad clover," which he cultivated with success, the result being " a vast acquisition to the night food of the horses, in a country where they had been accus- tomed to be fed with thistles only, from the corn fields, or with the coarsest of aquatic herbage from the different swamps." He cultivated turnips too in drills as early as 1760, and had both very superior cattle and horses ; some of his oxen weighing 80 and even 90 stones, while before 1775 he refused .£80 for a pair of horses. And the beautiful property of the Burn is described as "an estate that may be almost literally said to have been a creation by the late Lord Adam Gordon," who built "The Burn House" in 1791.
Probably the most remarkable improvers in the Mearns were the Barclays of Ury. Mr. Barclay, who succeeded to the estates in 1760, and who was not indeed the first, any more than he was the last, im- prover of the name, comes chiefly under our notice.* At the time that he succeeded to the estate it consisted largely of marsh and unreclaimed moorland. " The part cultivated was badly laid out in small farms, very insufficiently tilled. The mansion was but scantily sheltered with wood, while there was not a single tree
* The title of "Father of the Shorthorns" was wont to be applied to the last Barclay of Ury by his brother farmers in the north, who possibly were not aware that their "forbears" had dubbed the previous Barclay " the Father of Farming."
106 Notes and Sketches.
on any other part of the estate." To facilitate his operations, Mr. Barclay took a number of the farms into his own hands as he could get them, and " in the course of about thirty years improved most thoroughly 900 acres of arable land," 300 of which had been altogether marsh or heath j and he planted from 900 to 1000 acres with wood. The cost of these improve- ments must have been very great, as much as £40 an acre being laid out on some fields in trenching, drain- ing, removing stones, and other operations. And it is expressly stated that his outlay for lime-shells alone exceeded £6000.
Mr. Barclay was an athletic man, and come of an athletic race. His predecessor, David Barclay, of Mathers, who had been an officer under Gustavus Adolphus, afterwards became a convert to Quakerism. On retiring to his estate, he wished to have his land well cultivated — a point that gave him some trouble, owing to the prejudices of the peasantry. And it is related of him that, finding a certain ploughman obstinately disobedient to his instructions, on one occasion he addressed him thus : — " Thou knowest, friend, that I feed and pay thee to do my work in a proper manner, but thou art wise in thine own eyes, and regardest not the admonitions of thy employer. I have hitherto spoken to thee in a style thou under- standest not; for verily thou art of a perverse spirit. I wish to correct thy errors for my own sake and for thine ; and thereforel/ms tell thee," (coming over his head with a blow which brought him to the ground). " Though the weapon was carnal," adds the narrator of the story, " this was the demonstration of power, and had the desired effect ; the ploughman became tractable and quiet as a lamb." The last century Barclay of whom we have been speaking adhered to the family belief in this respect. Of him Mr. Robert- son says, that while employing " only the people of the country that were bred on his own lands or in the
Early Agricultural Improvers. 107
vicinity" (he had himself acquired his agricultural knowledge in Norfolk), "his discipline was severe, but it was very correct. He would admit of no slovenly practice — no slighting of the work. Nor did he require anything of his people, but what he could do himself, for while he delivered out his directions in the most clear and distinct manner, he could with his own hand show them the true mode of peformance. He could even enforce his authority with something more effective than verbal injunctions ; for it is said that the clownish obstinacy of his people was not unfrequently corrected by manual discipline. I have, indeed, met with different people that confess (and even in some measure glory in it) that they had the knowledge of their work beat into them by Mr. Barclay. This strict government had the happiest consequences, for not a little of the general dexterity in the Kincardineshire labourers is still to be traced to the original system of their education, established by Mr. Barclay of Ury. To have been in the service of Mr. Barclay always was, and still is, a great recommendation to any servant."
Sir William Nicolson of Glenbervie was the first person in the Mearns who raised hay from sown grass, about the