l6 AGRICULTURAL SURVEY OF Chap. L 



length, from east to west, may be 36 miles ; 

 and its medium breadth, from north to south, 

 14 miles : and, therefore, the whole contents 

 will amount to 504 square miles, or 256,970 

 Scots acres, equal to 322,560 acres, English 

 measure. 



Four-fifths of the county, nearly, may be con- 

 sidered as arable. The other fifth consists of 

 hill, moss, moor, roads, and woods, and is, therer 

 fore, either altogether inaccessible to the plough, 

 or incapable of improvement by tillage, with a- 

 ny prospect of advantage. 



DURING the existence of the Pictish Govern- 

 ment, this County seems to have formed a part 

 of that large district of country, bounded on the 

 north and south by the Tay and the Forth, and 

 extending from the foot of the Ochil hills, to 

 the German Ocean, which, on account of its 

 almost insular situation, was, in these ancient 

 times, called Ross. This word, in the Gothic or 

 Pictish language, signifies a peninsula. Hence 

 Kinross, or Keanross, as it was formerly spelled, 

 signifies the head of the peninsula ; Culross, the 

 back of the peninsula ; and Muck ross, the old 

 name for Fife-ness, the point, or snout of the 

 peninsula. By this general name it continued 

 to be called, until, in later times, as Buchanan 

 informs us, u Reliquum agri ad Fortham usque, 

 ainbitio, in varias prefectures dissecuit, Clack- 

 mananam, Culrossianam, et Kinrossianam." 

 The last of these, about the year 1426, was di- 

 vided into the two counties of Fife and Kinross : 

 -and at the Revolution, Kinross being thought 

 too small a county, as it then stood, was enlarg- 

 ed by the addition of Orwell, Cleish, and Tilli- 



