HISTORY 



THE HIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



CHAPTER I. 



ORIGIN AND EARLY OBJECTS OF THE HIGHLAND SOCIETY. 



It is to the year 1783 that we must assign the inception of 

 the association now known as the Highland and Agricul- 

 tural Society of Scotland. The war with America had just 

 closed, and the nation for the time enjoyed profound 

 peace. In the autumn of that year — eighteen years after 

 the demise of the Edinburgh Society recorded in the pre- 

 ceding chapter — a few gentlemen connected with the 

 north and west of Scotland, meeting near the Royal 

 Exchange, Edinburgh, began to talk over the good that 

 might result to the country at large by the institution of 

 a society for the improvement of the Highlands.* A small 

 committee was formed to consider the subject, but of their 

 deliberations no record was kept. After having had 

 several meetings, it was determined to ascertain the views 

 of those Highland gentlemen who could be most readily 

 consulted, and accordingly letters were written to those 

 connected with the Highlands who were then in Edin- 

 burgh, requesting their attendance at Fortune's Tontine 

 Tavern -j- on the 9th of February 1784. This meeting, 



* We think it very probable that the idea was suggested by the suffering 

 endured in many agricultural districts by the great failure of the crojis in 

 season 1782. 



t Fortune's Tavern was, in the beginning of last century, the town man- 

 sion of Alexander, ninth Earl of Eglinton. It is situated on the west side of 

 the Old Stamp Office Close, No. 221 , High Street. It was afterwards converted 

 into a tavern, kept by one Fortune. According to Chambers's ' Traditions of 



