THE INFLUENCE OF MAN. 327 



last years of the eighteenth century, reveal an astonish- 

 ingly backward condition in many parishes. The Earl 

 of Dundonald, writing in 1795, and referring either to 

 his own times or to those of 1745, gives the following 

 description : 



" The outfield land never receives any manure. 

 After taking from it two or three crops of grain, it is 

 left in the state it was in at reaping the last crop, with- 

 out sowing thereon grass seeds for the production of 

 any sort of herbage. During the first two or three 

 years a sufficiency of grass to maintain a couple of 

 rabbits per acre is scarcely produced. In the course of 

 some years it acquires a sward, and after having been 

 depastured for some years more it is again submitted 

 to the same barbarous system of husbandry." 



In 1745 in the parish of Meigle, there was no ground 

 fallowed ; neither peas, grass, turnips, nor potatoes were 

 raised. No cattle were fattened, and only a little 

 grain was exported. A few more examples will show 

 more clearly the state of Scotland about this period, at 

 least in some of the more out-of-the-way parishes. 

 There was one cart in the entire parish of Keithhall, 

 and goods were carried almost entirely on horses' 

 backs. Again, in Fortingal, there were neither roads 

 nor bridges in 1754, and the country was almost 

 impassable. Most of the tenants lived in small " stake 

 and rise," i.e. "wattle and daub" houses, in which it was 

 not possible to stand upright. They had no beds, but 

 lay on couches of heather and fern. 



These quotations leave the impression of a country 

 almost wild, and certainly more like, in its general 

 vegetation, the Britain seen by Caesar than that in 

 which we live. Nevertheless, it is necessary to remem- 

 ber that the incessant demand for firewood and the 



