282 AGRICULTURAL SURVEY OF chap. Xf. 



the proprietors were resident ; and the more o- 

 pulent generally kept carriages. Carts and 

 wains were become very common. Manufac- 

 tures were in a flourishing condition, and car- 

 ried on to a considerable extent. And a spirit 

 and taste for improvements in agriculture had 

 appeared and diffused themselves among many 

 of both the gentlemen and the farmers. Besides, 

 Fife was the great thoroughfare between the Me- 

 tropolis and some of the principal towns in the 

 north of Scotland, particularly Perth and Dun- 

 dee. Must it not then appear unaccountable, 

 that, though good roads have ever been deemed 

 a first step of improvement in any country, and, 

 indeed, an essential requisite to improvements 

 of every other kind, they should have been so 

 long and so totally neglected. 



An act of Parliament, it is true, was obtained 

 in the 26th of the reign of the late King, and 

 another in the I2th of his present Majesty, for 

 making and repairing certain roads in Fife. But 

 the operation of these acts was very limited, be- 

 ing confined chiefly to the western district of the 

 county. The sum arising from the assessment 

 of 20 9. Scots upon every lool. Scots of valued 

 rent in thecounty,for repairing roads and bridges, 

 was too trifling to produce any perceptible ef- 

 fect. Even the benefit of the statute-labour was, 

 in a great measure, lost, through the want of 

 judgment and economy in the application of it. 



At last, however, the state of the roads came 

 to be an object of serious consideration, not on- 

 ly as an evil that could no longer be suffered, 

 but as disgraceful to a county so opulent and 

 flourishing. In the year 1 790, the gentlemen 



