58 HIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



improvement of agriculture in the counties of Dumfries 

 and Kirkcudbright was formed, and that Mr Craik of 

 Arbigland was president. The society gave premiums for 

 the best modes of farming and for improvement of stock, 

 but it only lasted for a few years. Dr Johnston adverts at 

 great length to thirlage, which he terms ' the greatest 

 of all obstacles to improvement,' and he devotes a dozen of 

 pages of his report to an exposition of the injurious opera- 

 tion of the system. Mr Stewart, whose report we have 

 already mentioned, notices the production of cheese in the 

 Annandale districts, and observes that ' many followed the 

 Cheshire manner, and though generally on a small scale, 

 it is probable that the dairy farming will rather increase 

 than diminish.' In the parish of Johnstone, a dairy had been 

 set up in the Ayrshire mianner. Amongst the stocks of 

 whitefaced sheep in Annandale, Mr Stewart states that in 

 the parish of Hutton there was a flock of the Bakewell 

 kind, having been bred from a good stock, which originally 

 was a mixture of long and short sheep, with Bakewell rams. 

 They were begun to be crossed in the year 1777, and had 

 been continued with good rams ever since, with particular 

 attention, and ' they are now probably the most complete 

 and extensive stock of the Bakewell blood of any in North 

 Britain.' Mr Stewart remarks that about fifty years before 

 the date of his writing, the cattle in Annandale were 

 generally horned, not well shaped in the limbs, and small 

 in the bone. About the time mentioned, the farmers began 

 to introduce Galloway Polled bulls, while some introduced 

 milk cows from Teviotdale. The produce exhibited great 

 improvement ; but, notwithstanding, he owns that the breed 

 was susceptible of much greater advance, and he confesses 

 that the majority of farmers did not take proper care in the 

 choice of bulls. Horses had been much improved by the 

 introduction of stallions from Clydesdale. 



II. .SOUTHERN COUNTIES. 



KIRKCUDBRIGHT, WIGTON, AYR, LANARK, SELKIRK, PEEBLES, 

 EAST LOTHIAX, MID LOTHIAN, WEST LOTHIAN, RENFREW, 



Our notes on KIRKCUDBRIGHT are chiefly from the 

 reporters to the Statistical Account, the report on the 



