124 Notes and Sketches. 



by using oxen for draught purposes in place of horses, 

 alike in the plough and for farm carriages. They did 

 the work, at least as well, and in the end were fit for 

 the butcher's purpose, which horses were not. 



Farther on, toward the Fraserburgh coast, a picture 

 of the poverty prevailing among a considerable part of 

 the smaller tenants is given. "Their poverty, their 

 weak horses, and small ill-constructed carts" are spoken 

 of ; " their mean crops," it is said, " yield little fodder ; 

 their horses, cows, and winterers are starved." "I have 

 met many samples of the picture I have drawn. I 

 have seen a long train of small carts, the bottom and 

 sides done with spars for lightness, with ropes twisted 

 about the spars for holding in peats or shells, as much 

 as a feeble horse is able to drag along, and a man for 

 every cart. Reflecting on the burdens of sand carried 

 by women on their backs to Edinburgh, three or four 

 miles, I am certain that the load of the cart was less 

 than what was carried by a woman." 



Coming to the pith of our Surveyor's general remarks, 

 we find it stated of Aberdeen shire, as a whole, that 

 " This county is populous, and is turning more so 

 daily. The people are sober and industrious, at the 

 same time sufficiently docile. Wages for men ser- 

 vants are moderate ; for women they are much higher 

 than in the Lothians, owing to the extensive manu- 

 factory of stockings at Aberdeen, which has taught 

 all of them to knit ; and so industrious they are, that, 

 in travelling the high road, they knit as busily as at 

 home. The horned cattle, in general, are of a good 

 kind, but ill managed. . . . The poverty of the 

 pasture here is the bane of improvement, as likewise 

 the number of cattle that are kept. . . . The 

 native breed of sheep is diminutive, and no wonder ; 

 for the custom is to tether them ; and yet I could 

 observe no grass till I alighted and put on my spec- 

 tacles." And then he condemns the general practice 

 of tethering horses. And not without cause, as other 



