CHAP. I. SCOTLAND AT THE MIDDLE OF LAST CENTURY. 95 



near, it was thrown in and floated away, and in summer 

 it was burnt. 1 



The towns were for the most part collections of 

 thatched mud cottages, 2 giving scant shelter to a 

 miserable population. The whole country was poor, 

 desponding, gaunt, and almost haggard. The common 

 people were badly fed and wretchedly clothed ; those in 

 the country living in despicable huts with their cattle. 3 

 The poor crofters were barely able to exist. Lord 

 Kaimes says of the Scotch tenantry of the early part 

 of last century, that they were so benumbed by op- 

 pression and poverty 4 that the most able instructors 

 in husbandry could have made nothing of them. A 

 writer in the Scotch ' Farmer's Magazine ' sums up his 

 account of the country at that time in these words : 

 " Except in a few instances, it was little better than a 

 barren waste." 5 



What will scarcely be credited, now that the in- 

 dustry of Scotland has become thoroughly educated 

 by a century's discipline of work, was the inconceiv- 

 able listlessness and laziness of the people at that 



1 ' Farmer's Magazine,' No. xxxiv., 

 p. 200. 



2 It is stated in MacDiarmid's 

 * Picture of Dumfries ' that at the 

 middle of the century no lime was 

 used in building, "except a little 

 shell-lime, made of cockle-shells, which 

 was burned at Col vend, and brought 

 to Dumfries in bags." And, " in 1740, 

 when Provost Bell (the chief magis- 

 trate or mayor of that town) built 

 his house, the under storey was built 

 of clay, and the upper storeys with 

 lime brought from Whitehaven in 

 dry- ware casks." 



3 The Rev. Dr. Playfair in ' Statis- 

 tical Account of Scotland.' First edi- 

 tion. Vol. I., p. 513. 



4 Bad although the condition of 

 Scotland was at the beginning of last 

 century, there were many who be- 

 lieved that it would be made wwse 

 by the carrying of the Act of Union. 



The Earl of Wigton was one of these. 

 Possessing large estates in the county 

 of Stirling, and desirous of taking 

 every precaution against the impend- 

 ing ruin, he disposed to his tenants, 

 on condition that they continued to 

 pay him their then rents, low though 

 they were, his extensive estates in the 

 parishes of Denny, Kirkintulloch, and 

 Cumbernauld, retaining only a few 

 fields round the family mansion. 1 

 Fletcher of Saltoun equally feared 

 the ruinous results of the Union, 

 though he was less precipitate than 

 the Earl of Wigton. We need scarcely 

 say how completely all those appre- 

 hensions were falsified by the actual 

 results. 



5 ' Farmer's Magazine,' 1803. No. 

 xiii., p. 101. 



Farmer's Magazine, 1808, No. xxxiv., p. 193. 



