84 HIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and in consequence the principal roads were in a very bad 

 state. Unless for a few months in summer, it was impos- 

 sible to drive a carriage upon them with more than half an 

 ordinary load. Indeed, throughout the greatest part of the 

 year, it was more difficult to drag an empty cart along these 

 roads than to drive one fully loaded over roads in a proper 

 state of repair. Thirlage existed in an unmitigated form, 

 several persons being obliged to go three miles to mills three 

 or four times over, and being occupied a whole week in 

 reference to the grinding of half a dozen bolls of meal. 

 The holdings in general were very small, the rents ranging 

 from £2 to iJ^ioo, and the average rent being from ^^15 to 

 £20. Improved modes of culture prevailed on the home 

 farms of the different estates, and on these farms turnips 

 were reared with much success. The bulbs, Dr Anderson 

 considers, would be double the size of those reared in Nor- 

 folk. The advantage of the use of turnips in the feeding of 

 cattle was so obvious that there was not an occupier of land, 

 however small, who had not a patch of turnips. The Doctor 

 gives a lengthened account of what he regards as a valuable 

 implement for turnip sowing. It was a box made of plated 

 tin, nine inches long, and one inch or more in diameter, and 

 costing 8d. to is. By means of this implement 'the seeds 

 were dropped into the drill by a person who followed the 

 plough, and who as he went along shook the small box 

 containing the seeds.' The box is said to have been the 

 invention of Mr Udny of Udny, who had cultivated turnips 

 in Aberdeenshire with great success for sixty years. Till 

 within a short period before the date of Dr Anderson's re- 

 port, ploughing had been done universally in Aberdeenshire 

 by cattle, ten or twelve being yoked two abreast. At the 

 time of his report ploughing was still done with the old 

 Scotch plough, and he says ' the mode of ploughing is as 

 bad and slovenly as the team is awkward with which it is 

 performed.' The live stock on the farm chiefly consisted 

 of cattle, and on them the tenant mostly depended for the 

 payment of rent. The cattle were chiefly bred on the farm. 

 Dr Anderson's description of the cattle is remarkable, and 

 is worth quoting entire : — ' Though the breed of cattle in 



