82 HIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ancient Scotch, and a mixed breed. Several of the pro- 

 prietors and some farmers had begun to keep in consider- 

 able numbers the large Bakewell or Northumberland breed 

 of sheep. Mr Roger notes that farmers with grass en- 

 closures usually bought cattle from the northern counties 

 in early summer, disposing of them in the autumn either to 

 the butcher or by sending them into England. The old 

 Scotch plough improved, with metal boards, was in use. 

 Four horses were often yoked, but generally only two. 

 Some ploughs of Small's construction had been tried. 

 The wages of ploughmen were is. 3d. per day, without 

 board. Thirlages were not entirely abolished. Roads in 

 the county had, under an Act obtained in 1790, been made 

 to the five principal towns. 



IV.— NORTHERN AND NORTH-WESTERN COUNTIES. 



KINCARDINE, ABERDEEN, BANFF, MORAY, NAIRN, INVERNESS, CROMARTY, 

 ROSS, SUTHERLAND, CAITHNESS, ORKNEY, ARGYLL, AND HEBRIDES. 



Mr Donaldson of Dundee, in his report on the state 

 of agriculture in Kincardine, dated 1795, ascribes the 

 progress which had been made in agriculture in the county 

 mainly to the efforts of Mr Robert Barclay of Ury.* It was 

 Mr Barclay, he says, who introduced turnip field husbandry 

 into the county, and, at the date of Mr Donaldson's report, 

 it generally formed part of the regular rotation. Potatoes 

 were introduced into the district about 1755, being culti- 

 vated first for sale on a sandy flat field of Mr Barclay's, in 

 the immediate neighbourhood of Stonehaven. Artificial 

 grasses are believed to have been first seen in the county 

 about 1752. Thrashing mills had been introduced, and 

 were universally approved ; a millwright in Stonehaven 

 having made, in the course of six months, from six to eight 

 of these mills, and, at the date of the report, was receiving 

 orders for others from almost every corner of the county. 



* Robert Barclay, great grandson of the apologist for the Quakers, died 

 April 8, 1797, in his 67th year. He married for his second -w-ife Sarah Ann 

 Allardice of Allardice, who was ser^-ed heiress of line of the Earls of Airth 

 and Menteith. Their eldest son. Captain Barclay Allardice, was bom August 

 25. 1779, and died May i, 1854. 



