WRETCHEDNESS OF COUNTRY. 131 



nock, says that about 1760 no enclosures were to be 

 seen, except perhaps one or two around a gentle- 

 man's seat, in all the wide-extended and beautiful 

 plain of Cunningham. Here at the end of harvest, 

 when the crop was carried into the barn-yard fro-m 

 the fields, the whole county had the appearance of a 

 wild and dreary common, and nothing was to be seen 

 but here and there a poor barn and homely hut, where 

 the farmer and his family were lodged. The cattle 

 roamed at pleasure and poached all the arable ground, 

 now saturated with the winter rains, so that it was 

 spoiled for the crop of the following year. 15 



Yet there must have been some exceptions to this 

 account, although it probably describes the general 

 state of the county. The parish of Dunlop appears 

 to have been distinguished agriculturally as early as 

 1700, 16 and in 1740 a Mr. Boyd purchased a cow at 

 the then unprecedented price of 2 2s. 17 The fact 

 of people coming from a considerable distance to 

 obtain a sight of such a famous animal would indicate 

 that the seeds of progress were dormant, rather than 

 dead, in the community, and that occasional improve- 

 ments or efforts towards change must have been 

 taking place. 



In 1804 we find all the wretchedness changed. 

 "Were a person now to stand," says a writer in the 

 " Farmer's Magazine " of that year, " upon an emi- 

 nence, and survey the beautiful plains of Kyle and 

 Cunningham, with a considerable part of Carrick, he 



is Farmer's Magazine, 1804, p. 73. *c Forsyth's Beauties of Scotland, ii, 439. 

 " Alton, op. cit. p. 172. 



