128 EARLY AGRICULTURE. 



The first definite reports we have of the agriculture 

 of Ayrshire embraces the period comprehended be- 

 tween the years 1750 and 1760. Colonel Fullarton, 

 writing in 1793, states that at this time there was 

 hardly a practicable road in the county. The farm- 

 houses were mere hovels moated with clay. The few 

 ditches which existed were ill constructed, and the 

 hedges worse preserved. The land was overrun with 

 weeds and rushes, and gathered into such high, 

 broad, and serpentine ridges, interrupted with baulks, 

 that a man was required, armed with a pole hooked 

 to the beam of the plough, to regulate the width of 

 the furrow, a device rendered necessary by the extra- 

 ordinary height of the ridges, some of them being 

 nearly at an angle of 30. The soil was collected on 

 the top of the ridge, and the furrow drowned in 

 water. There were no fallows, nor green crops nor 

 sown grass. The ground was scourged with oats 

 succeeding crops of oats, as long as the harvest 

 would pay for the seed and labor, and afford a small 

 surplus of oatmeal for the family ; then after a period 

 of sterility, or overrun with thistles, it was called 

 upon for another scanty crop. 



The farms were of small size, and occupied by 

 mixed tenants, and were divided into what were called 

 the croft or infield, and outfield land. The croft, 

 which was a chosen piece of land near the house, 

 received all the dung, which was of small avail, and 

 which the farmers dragged to the field on cars or 

 sledges or tumbler- wheels, which turned with the 

 axle-tree, and were hardly able to draw five hundred 



