ON THE AGRICULTURE OF THE COUNTY OF FIFE. 59 



Fifeshire are considered superior in respectability and intelligence 

 to the greater number of tlieir brethren in the west of Scotland. 

 They are well paid and live very comfortably and quietly. The 

 average wage of miners in Scotland (and Fifeshire may be taken 

 at the same rate) in 1851, was reckoned at 2s. 6d. a-day ; in 

 1854, 5s. ; in 1858, 3s. ; in 1863, 5s. 6d. ; in 1864, 4s. 9d. ; and 

 in 1868, 4s. 6d. Some two or three years ago, miners in many 

 cases were earning as much as 10s. a-day, but now the rates 

 have lowered to little more than the standard in 1868. 



Manufactures. — Fifeshire is one of the most important manu- 

 facturing counties in Scotland. Justice could be done to this 

 extensive branch of industry only by devoting a special report 

 to itself : and therefore our few remarks here must necessarily 

 be very imperfect. The yearly valuation of the mills, manu- 

 factories, and other jmblic works, in 1865, was L. 18,124. Linen 

 is the staple production, for the manufacture of which the county 

 is justly famed all over the country. Mr Warden, author of a 

 comprehensive treatise on " The Linen Trade, Ancient and 

 Modern," calculated that in 1867 there were 51 flax, jute and 

 hemp works in Fifeshire — 74,658 spindles, 5038 power looms, 

 and 11,579 persons employed in the trade. Linen has been pro- 

 duced in the county for upwards of 200 years, but it was after 

 the advent of the present century that it began to develop pro- 

 perly. Of late it has increased immensely. In 1743 the num- 

 ber of yards of linen stamped in Kirkcaldy was 300,000, about 

 1780 it was 1,000,000, and in 1818 no less than 2,000,000. At 

 present there are upwards of 1000 hand looms in operation in 

 the county ; the number of power looms is about 2700, and the 

 quantity of cloth annually made by hand and power is consider- 

 ably over 30,000,000 square yards. Mr Bremner, in his " In- 

 dustries of Scotland," published in 1869, says, that "Dunfermline 

 is the chief seat of the manufacture of table linen in Britain — 

 indeed it may be said, in the world. . . . There is more linen 

 cloth manufactured in Dunfermline than was made in all Scot- 

 land in any year preceeding 1822, and the value of the goods 

 produced cannot be much under L. 2,000,000 a-year." The 

 county is specially noted for its manufacture of table cloth, and 

 Fifeshire firms have frequently had the honour of supplying 

 royal orders. Floor-cloth is manufactured very extensively at 

 Kirkcaldy, where two very large floor-cloth works — the only 

 factories of the kind in Scotland — are busily employed. In one 

 of these works about 200 persons are employed. There is also 

 a large fishing net manufactory in Kirkcaldy. 



Fishing. — Fifeshire partakes pretty largely in the " harvest of 

 the sea." Along the east coast especially, there are several fish- 

 ing villages. Anstruther, however, may be called the head- 

 quarters of the fishing persuasion. In 1825 there were only 58 



