MISERY OF OUR FOREFATHERS 



were fattened. A little grain (oats or barley) was exported. 

 In 1754 or thereabouts, there was only one cart in the 

 parish of Keithhall. Everything was carried about on 

 ponies'* backs, as is the case nowadays in the most unsettled 

 parts of Canada. The country in places was almost im- 

 passable. Bridges did not exist, and the roads were mere 

 tracks. In Rannoch the tenants had no beds, but lay on 

 the ground on couches of heather or fern. These houses 

 were built of wattle and daub, and so low that people had 

 to crawl in on hands and feet and could not stand upright. 



"In the best times that class of people seldom could 

 indulge in animal food, and they were in use to support 

 themselves in part with the blood taken from their cattle at 

 different periods, made into puddings or bread with a 

 mixture of oatmeal. Their common diet was either oatmeal, 

 barley, or bear, cleared of the husks in a stone trough by a 

 wooden mallet, and boiled with milk ; coleworts or greens 

 also contributed much to their subsistence, and cabbages 

 when boiled and mashed with a little oatmeal."^ Potatoes 

 were introduced in Dumfriesshire some time after 1750, and 

 the use of lime as manure at about the same time. Even 

 in 1775 the roads were such that no kind of loaded carriages 

 could pass without the greatest difficulty. 



There is a most fascinating account in Dr. Singer's work 

 of a strong man's difficulties in starting reasonable agricul- 

 ture in Dumfriesshire about the year 1785. This was Pat- 

 rick Miller, of Dalswinton. (It was on Dalswinton Loch 

 that he tried the very first steamboat.) " When I went to 

 view my purchase, I was so much disgusted for eight or ten 

 days that I then meant never to return to this county. A 



1 Mr. John Murray, of Murray thwaite, referring probably to 1780, 

 from Singer, Agricultural Survey of Dumfriesshirey 1812. 



152 



