CHAPTEE VIII. 



THE BAD HARVEST OF 1782 THE ACTION TAKEN BY THE 



TOWN AND COUNTY OF ABERDEEN TO MEET THE FAMINE. 



IN 1782, the harvest was unusually late, even for a 

 time when from imperfect cultivation and similar causes 

 the normal period of ripening of crops was apt to be put 

 well into the autumn. The season had been a very 

 backward one throughout ; and the harvest of that year 

 in Aberdeenshire is said to have been the worst on 

 record. The summer was so cold and rainy that 

 most of the oat crop was only beginning to shoot in 

 the end of August. Early and severe frosts came 

 soon after, the first in the middle of September which 

 damaged some part of the grain then in the milky 

 stage, so as to render it unfit for seed. And again we 

 read, that on the night of the 5th of October, " when 

 growing oats and barley were still generally green" 

 " a frost, armed almost with the vigour of a Green- 

 land climate, desolated in one night the hope of the 

 husbandman." At the end of October, when but 

 little of the crop had been cut, a snowstorm of extra- 

 ordinary severity for the season ensued. Snow lay a 

 foot deep in many places, and the storm continued for a 

 fortnight. After it had passed away, the crop, still green 

 but now past hope of proper ripening, was cut as it 

 best could be in the continued cold and wet, though 

 portions remained uncut at 28th November. Hardly 

 any of the crop was got carried to the stackyard in 

 the usual way, but was first put up on the fields in 

 small " huicks," which could not be finally " led" 



