PART SIXTH.

MISCELLANEOUS.

CHAPTER XL.

AGRICULTURE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

A SHORT chapter on the state of agriculture in the parish, and the social condition of the people in last century, should find a place in this rambling history. The retrospect is one which ought to give rise to feelings of thankfulness for the better times, and the improved condition on which the lot of the present generation has been cast. The first half of the century was one of general depression in agriculture through the whole of Scotland; and there were local causes in the parish of hindrance to the prosperity, which gradually followed its restoration to settled peace and unmolested industry. Ruddiman, it has been said, received an exceptionally high price for his corn while he was in the parish. The average price per boll, for ten years preceding 1699, of wheat was 16s. 11 d., and oats 10s. 1d., sterling. But these

prices were the result of a succession of defective crops ending in famine, the bitter effects of which were felt at the beginning of the century.

Several of the storms of the century were intense in their severity and disastrous in their effects, and have acquired a historical reputation. An account of one or two, derived from personal experience of their consequences in the parish, is given in one of Mr James Cowie's interesting pamphlets. "In 1740," he writes, "a great frost occurred, which continued for about five months, destroying vegetation extensively, including natural grasses over wide districts of country. A very old farmer, upwards of ninety, whom I used to visit when a boy to enjoy his old anecdotes, told me that he recollected the day when the sudden thaw and heat came. The day previous, labourers were working in their greatcoats and plaids, and next day had to doff their coats and vests; but for a week or two the side of the ridge-the ridges were then almost at an angle of 45°-towards the south could only be dug or ploughed. Death from cold and hunger was not uncommon during this terrible winter." The informant was James Milne, for many years farmer at Burnton, who ended his days in straitened circumstances. Another year of disaster was 1782, which is still known as the year of the "snowy harvest." The spring and summer had been unseasonable, and this is the account which an eyewitness gave of the result in autumn: “An old man, who was still able for my harvest work, when I was a young farmer, was engaged in the '82 harvest, and he gave me the most deplorable accounts of the difficulties they had in securing the tops-for they

X

got little of the straw-which peeped above the frosted snow. Three and four pecks of meal to the boll were considered a good return. This and the next crop, which was deficient from bad seed, almost ruined the whole tenants in late districts."

The disaster of 1782 was exceptionally hard on many of the farmers in the parish-on all indeed on the Haulkerton estate who had been recent sufferers

from another cause. A few years previously, several of the tenants of Lord Falconer, believing that they held their farms on long lease, refused to leave or renew the terms when the alternative was offered them. The case was before the Court of Session, where a decision favourable to the farmers was obtained. It was appealed to the House of Lords, and that decision was upset. Some of the farmers concerned were ruined in consequence, none of them ever fully recovered, and they all died poor men.

For many years of the century there was little security to encourage the farmer to enterprise. The Highland raid, which brought desolation on Conveth towards the close of the previous century, was not indeed often repeated. But there were troubles enough apart from the occasional presence of armies, for which, hostile or otherwise, provision had to be made, and which, whether friends or foes, were apt to indulge a spirit of mischief, in addition to direct exaction of bolls of meal for their maintenance.

Two instances may be recorded, more of a ludicrous than lamentable description, though sufficiently annoying to the parties immediately interested. On the occasion of a birth in the old farmhouse of Middleton, the "blythe-meats" were being enjoyed by

a few neighbours, when a party of the Duke of Cumberland's soldiers entered, and cleared the festive board. The house of Burnton, then in possession of a family named Christie, was visited by soldiers during the '45. They demanded milk, which not being to their satisfaction when they received it, they went into the dairy and emptied every basin of its contents. A daughter about to be married had her "providing" well secured against such a raid. It had been put into a chest, and the chest buried in what is still the garden attached to the farmhouse. To make detection impossible, and perhaps as a sly joke at the expense of the pilfering visitants, the ground beneath which lay the valuables of the bride. was planted all over with "cabbage "!

But when natural causes were in favour of the farmer, even though his position had been one of greater security, he lacked the kind of implements calculated to do justice to the soil. The first quarter of the century had gone before the use of wheeled vehicles became general; and the state of the roads was not adapted for the purposes of a healthy traffic. The want in regard to the carriage of produce came to be supplied at a comparatively early date. The present century, however, had well begun before such a thing was known as a farmer's gig. The only kind. of locomotion for male or female was riding or walking, as circumstances allowed. It is alleged that the first gig seen in Laurencekirk was about 1815, when Mr Barclay, at Northwater Bridge, drove down the street with one which he had recently acquired. The sight was unprecedented, and the people turned out to behold it with astonishment. The plough in gen

eral use, an unwieldy implement, was dragged by oxen, sometimes to the number of ten or twelve. The animals have been descr bed as "miserable specimens of the bovine race." The fault, however, was not theirs. The wonder is that, with the usage they received, they sustained existence, not to speak of yielding service. They underwent a species of slow starvation all winter, having only straw and thistles to eat in sufficient quantity for the barest subsistence. In consequence, they were so much reduced in condition and strength, that towards spring they were rarely able to rise in their stalls without help.

There is in existence a lease of the farm of Mains of Haulkerton to Alexander Cowie in 1710, from which it appears that the annual rental was under £40, and paid in kind. If the other lands were rented in proportion, the whole rental of the parish at the time had been rather less than the present rent of Mains. Agriculture was in such a backward state about the time of the '45, that offerers for farms were got with the greatest difficulty. Drumforber was to be let about that period; no tenant was forthcoming, and the proprietor was obliged to stock it himself. Even then he succeeded in inducing a tenant to enter only on condition of his receiving onehalf of the profits. An old document in possession of Mr Robert Crabb, which apparently belongs to the period about 1770, and is in the handwriting of Mr Scott, schoolmaster, comprises what is termed "A list of the whole rent of the Polburn, Scottstown, and Midletouns, Bonetoun and Laurencekirk: