An Agricultural Tour. 119 



with a patriotic view. This brewery was erected to 

 .give vent to their own bere and barley, and to save great 

 sums remitted annually to London for porter. This 

 brewery meets with great encouragement, and it is 

 the great boast of the citizens that they can now rejoice 

 over their own porter, instead of bringing it from 

 London." So much for Aberdeen porter and patriotism 

 .a hundred years ago. 



The social state of the inhabitants, urban and rural, 

 is statistically given in a few compendious sentences 

 "The inhabitants are sober and industrious; and 

 the following particulars will show that wages and 

 provisions are moderate : The wages paid to labourers 

 in remote parts are from 5d. to 7d. per day ; at Aber- 

 deen, 9d. in winter and 12d. in summer. The women 

 are so well employed in knitting stockings as scarce 

 to undertake field work, even at 6d. Beef gives 2|d. 

 .a-pound, and mutton 3d. Dutch weight. In the 

 spring, beef and mutton rise to 3Jd., 4d., and 4Jd. per 

 lb., there being little or no early grass in the county. 

 A pound of butter, of 28 oz., can be had for 7d., and 

 cheese, poultry, and meal in proportion. They have 

 indeed no coal but what is imported. Peats they 

 have in plenty ; but they are too remote from many 

 places to be a cheap firing." 



About this date the more prominent citizens seem 

 to have taken strongly to farming. Even the skilful 

 East-Lothian Surveyor declares that " there is perhaps 

 no place in the world where a spirit for husbandry 

 has made such a figure as about Aberdeen. A corner 

 between the rivers Dee and Don has for many years 

 been cultivated in the most skilful manner by a mix- 

 ture of the garden and field crops, one year cabbage, 

 next year barley ; one year turnip or potatoes, next 

 year oats, and so alternately, a mode of cropping un- 

 known anywhere else in Scotland." Outside this 

 corner a dry, barren, stony muir prevailed. To think 

 of profitable improvement of the same might appear 



