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 



