1148 



STATISTICS_OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part IV. 



southwards, by greater attention to collecting manure, not employing women and children in the lighter 

 operations of husbandry, and .limiting tenants to a certain number of subtenants. The celebrated Dr 

 James Anderson, farmed extensively in this county, at Mounie, now the property of his eldest son. Alex- 

 ander Anderson Seaton, a distinguished horticulturist. {Keith's General View, 1811.) 



above three feet deep ; secondly, a well-paved causeway of 

 granite ; thirdly, a bed of pure sand, one foot deep ; fourthly, 

 another causeway of granite ; and below the whole, a consider- 

 able depth of rich mould. No greater precaution could have 

 been taken to hinder the roots of the fruit trees from being 

 injured, by piercing into a cold or wet subsoil. 



9. Woods and Plantations, 



In the higher division of Mar, occupy nearly 100 square 

 miles, in some places very thickly planted, and in others raised 

 by nature, at very different distances between the trees. Near- 

 ly one-third has been both enclosed and planted ; one-thiid 

 has been raised by nature, without either enclosing or plant- 

 ing the ground ; and the remainder has been surrounded by 

 fences for keeping out the cattle, and then been stocked with 

 wood, raised from seed, either blown by the wind, or carried by 

 the rooks, who, by some instinctive impulse, carry the cones 

 of the Scotch pine in their bills, to provide habitations for their 

 offspring, at a remote period, when the seeds contained in 

 these cones become trees, in which they may build their nests. 



1. Geographical State and Circumstances. 



No metals, or coal, and very httle limestone, but abundance 

 of excellent granite ; which is used for every sort of building at 

 home, and exported to London in great quantities. Besides 

 the durability, there is one other excellence attending the use 

 of this stone ; the expense of carving It has simplified the style 

 of architecture. 



2. Property, 



Much divided, only two or three large estates. Lord Aber- 

 deen's the most valuable, consists of 30,000 arable acres, and 

 25,000 waste. 



3. Buildings. 

 A number ofruined castles and religious buildings, and a 



few handsome modem houses. An artiple descriptive list of 

 gentlemen's seats, which are very numerous. Farm-houses, 

 formerly wretched structures of clay, turf, and thatch, are 

 now greatly improved; cottages improving. " Decent J'arm- 

 hmises" first began to be thought of about 1760. In 1794, Dr. 

 Anderson observes in his report of the county on which the 

 present one is founded, that they are " for the most part very 

 ixjor. This is," he adds, " highly impolitic. Nothing contri- 

 butes more to the content and conveniency of a farmer, than 

 good and well disposed buildings. It elevates his mind, gives 

 him spirit to pursue his operations with alacrity, and contri- 

 butes in many instances to augment his profits. I never yet 

 saw a thriving tenant who had not good houses. But on no 

 account should he be induced to expend that stock upon 

 building houses, which should be employed in extending his 

 own proper business. It ought always to be done by the land- 

 lord; and, in general, a good set of houses upon a farm, will 

 bring him much greater additional rent than the interest of 

 the money expended upon them. Nothing will prove such an 

 allurement Jis good buildings, and long leases on equitable 

 terms." Since 1794, whenjDr. Anderson wrote the above para- 

 graph, we have got farmers from Berwickshire, Angus, 

 Meams, and other southern districts, who have taken farms in 

 Aberdeenshire, and many of whom have shown excellent ex- 

 amples in agriculture, as well as improved their own capital ; 

 and the native farmers of the county, in consequence of their 

 example, both in asking good houses, and in raising good crops, 

 are now in a much more flourishing situation. 



4. Occupation. 



The greatest diversity in the size of farms ; from six acres to 

 thousands : scarcely a mechanic, journeyman or master, who 

 has not a farm of one acre or two, or a garden ; besides the 

 produce, they find the labor highly conducive to health, by 

 counteracting the effect of indoor confinement, and prolonged 

 unfavorable bodily postures, or contaminating respiration. 



5. Implements. 



Turnips formerly sown from a small tin box, nine inches 

 long, and one inch square, with two or three holes at one end, 

 through which the operator shook out the seeds : thinned by 

 a part of the blade of an old scythe fastened to a bit of iron like 

 a common hoe ; the advantages of the latter are its sharpness, 

 but it is easily broke. A child's cradle rocked by water. 

 . 6. Enclosures. 



Stone fences, or ditches and earthen banks, the common 

 fences : this frees the land from loose stones, which abound 

 every where, or serves to drain it. 



7. Arable Land. 



Potatoes, as well as various other improvements, first intro- 

 duced to field culture after the calamitous year, 1782 : not 

 liked by farmers so well as the turnip. The reporter tried vari- 

 ous experiments in distilling from potatoes, which are recorded 

 in the Farmeia' Magazine. Yellow turnips very .much sown, 

 and generally preferred by the cow-keepers. Ruta baga in 

 great repute, but requires to be earlier sown than the yellow, 

 and consequently does not admit of so thoroughly cleaning the 

 ground. Carrot, beet, scorzonera, and other roots fermented 

 and distilled by the reporter, the best spirit and greatest 

 quantity from carrot. White beet grown, but found to yield less 

 produce than turnip, carrot, or cabbage. 



8. Gardens and Orchards. 



The county of Aberdeen is distinguished beyond any other 

 county in the island, for the preparatory branch of all good 

 gardening, viz., trenching the soil to a proper depth. We have 

 a numerous class of gardeners in the vicinity of Aberdeen, who 

 cultivate the lands in the neighborhood of that city, and 

 whose practice deserves to be generally known, (and generally 

 imitated. 



They, in fact, are kitchen gardeners, seedsmen, and nursery- 

 men. They raise all sorts of roots for the inhabitants of the 

 cities of New and Old Aberdeen, various seeds for the use of 

 the country at large, and nurseries so extensive, and so care- 

 fully managed, that, besides serving the landed proprietors in 

 the county, and the owners of villas near the towns, ithey ex- 

 port considerable numbers of plants to England. 



A few good private orchards ; the largest, that of Ferguson 

 of Pitfour, of ten acres. The site of it, nearly 600 years ago, 

 contained the Abbey of Deer, founded in 1218, and the garden 

 belonging to the monastery. It is a striking proof of the lux- 

 ury of the Romish clergy, and of their uncommon skill in the 

 raising of ftuit-trees, that when Ferguson was laying out his 

 new orchard, he found in the Abbey garden, first, rich soil. 



In these higher districts, wood grows so easily, that the pro- 

 prietor neea only enclose an extent of hilly ground, and thus 

 shut out the cattle. The wind and the crows will in time sup- 

 ply him with seeds. But when these natural woods grow very 

 irregularly, it is found prudent to assist nature, by sowing, or 

 occasionally scratching into the soil, a number of seecJs of 

 the trees which are wished to be reared in the vacant spaces. 

 "The greater proportion of these woods consists of Scotch 

 pine, it grows slowly at first, but is very valuable. Where the 

 soil is most barren, and the trees grow very slowly, the wood 

 of the Scotch pine is of the best quality. A remarkable tree, 

 at Invercauld, was cut down about forty years ago ; and the 

 number of concentric circles near its root, viz. 229, showed 

 it to have grown and increased in size for 229 years, besides 

 the time that it continued stationary. Its wood was de- 

 clared, by all who saw it, to be much superior in quality to 

 any that had ever been imported from the north of Europe. 

 There are thousands of pine trees in Braemar, some of which 

 are nearly six feet in diameter, which are superior in point of 

 quality to any wood of that denomination that was ever im- 

 ported into any place in Great Britain. 



10. Improvements. 



Trenching has been already mentioned : within three miles 

 of Aberdeen, above .'3000 acres trenched ; some acres paid 601. 

 per acre, for granite bowlders for exportation. Practice of 

 trenchinfj very general throughout the county. 



Irrigation adopted on poor iron-stone clay, not worth two 

 shillings per acre, but raised in value to two pounds. The 

 operator brought from Gloucester, by Ferguson, of Pitfour. 



11. Livestock. 



More cattle bred than in any other county. Scotch cattle 

 first improved by crossing some English cows sent down by 

 Henry VII. to his eldest daughter, Queen of James IV. The 

 produce was known as the Falkland breed. Williamson's 

 three brothers sell annually about 8000 head of cattle of vari- 

 ous breeds, in the south-country markets. They decidedly 

 prefer the true native, unmixed, and raised by good keeping, 

 to the mixture of the Falkland, or Fifeshire breed, with that 

 of this county ; and consider both these to be much superior to 

 the English, or to any foreign breeds. They justly remark, 

 that the food, or keep should be always above the breed, and 

 not the breed above the keep. They consider the small high- 

 land cattle, which are generally bought by inferior dealers, as 

 too restless and impatient for feeding well. They prefer the 

 native low country breed to the larger ones, as they are most 

 easily maintained, more hardy in work, have flesh of the finest 



Cin, and pay better in proportion to the goodness of their 

 p. Every succeeding generation, for the last thirty years, 

 has increased in size, and that, by good keeping ; the native 

 breed is double its former size (t. e. weighs at least double its 

 former weight), since the introduction of the turnip husban 

 dry. They are also decidedly of opinion, that wherever a 

 landed proprietor breeds more than one year for family use, 

 the stot should not be tied up, but allowed to feed loose, in or- 

 der to get gentle exercise along with his food, that the second 

 year he may be put to high feeding, and be tied up, and may 

 be continued with this high feeding as long as he seems to 

 thrive ; but that he ought to be killed whenever he loaths his 

 food, or appears to be sickly, or not thriving. 



The sheep few, and of a mixed breed. Horses are native po- 

 nies, or purchased from Clydesdale. Poultry very common ; 

 great demand for eggs, both for the Aberdeen and London 

 markets. Red deer in great numbers in Braemar, and roes in 

 the hills of Cromeir. 



12. Manufactures. 



County long celebrated for its woollen manufactures. About 

 1660 Garden, of Gilconeston, a wealthy sheep farmer and ma- 

 nufacturer, had a daughter, who married Lieutenant Cadogan 

 of Cromwell's army, who afterwards was made a peer, and from 

 whom sprang the Dukes of Richmond and Leicester, Lords 

 Cadogan, Veniey, Holland, C. J. Fox,, and other eminent 

 English families. 



Woollen, linen, and cotton, how extensively manufactured, 

 ockings and spinning lint formerly comn 

 . to since the introduction of machinery. 



7067. NAIRNSHIRE and MORAYSHIRE. Forming together 512,000 acres of mountainous surface, 

 and some narrow arable vales, are included in one survey. The climate along the Moray Frith has always 

 been noted for its mildness, which is partly owing to its localities, and partly to the general prevalence of 

 a dry sandy soil. On the mountains the climate is more severe. Lead, iron, lime, marl, freestone, slate, 

 &c. are found, but the two first are not worked at all, and of the others, only the freestone, to any extent. 

 (Lister's General View, 1810.) 



1. Property 



In very large estates, as for example, those of the Duke of 

 Gordon, and|Earls of Findlater, Moray, Fife, and Lord Cawdor. 



2. Buildings. 



Considerable as has been the alterations in the houses of 

 yroprietorsj it is nothing to that which has taken place in those 



of farmers. Prior to the year 1760, in the dwellings of tenants 

 there were neither floors, ceilings, nor chimneys. In a few of 

 them, the low wall was rudely raised of stone, and clay mor- 

 tar, and had a small glass window ; in one only of the apart- 

 ments was any plaster, and it was raked over the walls in the 

 most artless manner ; a loft, on which the roof rested without 



