104 SCOTLAND AT THE MIDDLE OF LAST CENTURY. PART VII. 



was done to improve this essential part of the communi- 

 cations of the country. Where attempts were made by 

 local builders to erect such structures, they very rarely 

 stood the force of a winter's, or even a summer's, flood. 

 " I remember," says John Maxwell, " the falling of the 

 Bridge of Buittle, which was built by John Frew in 

 1722, and fell in the succeeding summer, while I was in 

 Buittle garden seeing my father's servants gathering 

 nettles." l A similar fate befell the few attempts that were 

 made about the same time to maintain the lines of com- 

 munication by replacing the old bridges where they had 

 gone to ruin, or substituting new ones in place of fords. 



The mechanical arts had indeed fallen into the very 

 lowest state. All kinds of tools were of the most im- 

 perfect description. The implements used in agriculture 

 were extremely rude. They were mostly made by the 

 farmer himself, in the roughest possible style, without 

 the assistance of any mechanic. But a plough, which 

 was regarded as a complicated machine, was reserved for 

 the blacksmith. It was made of young birch trees, and, 

 if the tradesman was expert, it was completed in the 

 course of a winter's evening. 2 This rude implement 

 scratched, without difficulty, the surface of old crofts, 

 but made sorry work in out-fields, where the sward was 

 tough and stones were large and numerous. Lord 

 Kaimes said of the harrows used in his time, that they 

 were more fitted to raise laughter than to raise mould. 

 Machinery of an improved kind had not yet been intro- 

 duced in any department of labour. Its first applica- 

 tion, as might be expected, was in agriculture, then the 

 leading, and indeed almost the only, branch of industry 

 in Scotland ; and its introduction will be found to be 

 both curious and interesting in its bearing upon the 

 subject of our present memoir. 



1 Appendix to 'Picture of Dum- 

 fries.' By John MacDiarmid. Edin- 

 burgh, 1832. 



2 * Farmer's Magazine,' No. xxxiv., 

 p. 199. 



