clouds, all diverfify the landscape, add grandeur to the profpect, and prepare the foul for contemplation.

Soil, Cultivation, Minerals, &c.-The foil in the carfe has been rendered more productive, by draining the swamps, by laying a greater quantity of lime annually on the land than used formerly to be done, and by ftreighting the ridges in feveral places. The foil in the higher grounds is in general loam upon a till bottom, and in many places a ftiff till, without any mixture of loam, especially where the land is spouty. A great part of the upland, so lately as 20 years ago, was covered with furze and broom, which have been grubbed out by the farmers, fince the knowledge of improvement, and the defire of industry have been introduced into this country; and their labour has been amply rewarded by abundant crops. The land, where furze used to grow, is now a ftrong generous foil; and its ftrength may in every cafe be estimated by the fize and luxuriance of the whins, in its natural ftate. The foil which carries broom, in its uncultivated state, is not so strong as the former; but it is a trufty foil, and will make good returns of the ordinary crops, when tenderly dealt with, and allowed occafionally to reft in grafs. Where whins and broom are mixed, the foil is ftrong or light, in the degree in which either of thefe prevails; and to encourage the husbandman still farther, such land feldom requires draining, where these plants are found. Blocks of granite have been blown in different places off the higher grounds, and removed at confiderable expence; and land which was lately in a state of nature, lets now at a guinea an acre in pafture. Where the foil was fpouty, at the fkirts of the hills, covered drains have been made; but in the clay land the drains are all open.

Climate, Difeafes, and Longevity.-In the carfe, intermittent fevers were very frequent fome time ago, occafioned, principally, by the dampness of the country; but fince the ground has been drained, and the inhabitants are more comfortably lodged and fed, all diftempers, arifing from a relaxed habit, are neither fo common nor fevere.-There is nothing extraordinary in the ftature or longevity of the people. About the beginning of 1794, there died in the carfe a perfon aged 93. Several perfons, now alive, enjoy good health at the age of 80. The people in general are healthy and hardy, inured, from their infancy, to the laborious exercises of agriculture, which, by their improved ftile of living, they are not only enabled to undergo with fuccefs, but with comfort and ease,

Produce, &c. The produce is wheat, barley, oats, peafe, beans, clover, and rye-grass; and in up-lands lefs wheat and beans, but in their place more turnips, flax, and potatoes of various kinds.-The wheat is fown in the latter end of September, and during the whole month of October, usually after fummer fallow. The farmers begin to fow pease and beans in February, and oats as early in March as the feafon will allow. The fowing of barley is generally finished by the ift of May. Potatoes are planted about the middle of May, which is alfo the feafon for the barley feed time in the up-land. The turnips are fown in June. The wheat yields. about 10 bolls an acre, having 8 or 10 chalders of lime laid on the preceding fallow. The harvest begins about the middle of Auguft, and is finished in 6 weeks thereafter, when the feafon is favourable. The wheat fells generally at 21 s. and fometimes more, by the boll; the barley from 18 s. to 22 s.; meal commonly at 16 s. The barley is fometimes fown by itself, and fometimes mixed with Chester bear. The oats, VOL. XVII. moft

G

most frequently cultivated in this parish, are the old Scotch kind. The Cupar Grange fpecies is àlfo introduced. The beans have always a mixture of about one-third of pease.

Wages and Prices of Provifions.-Servants wages have risen confiderably within these few years. A bred ploughman cannot be hired for a year under 91. or 10l.; a maid-servant charges 3 1. and upwards. Common labourers get 1 s. a day and their victuals. Beef fells at between 4 d. and 5 d. per lib.; mutton commonly at 4d.; a pair of good barn fowls at 2s. 6d. ; eggs at 6 d. or 8 d. the dozen; butter at 10 d. the lib.; and cheefe at 4d.

Farm Houfes.-The farm houses have lately undergone great improvements, owing to the general spirit of industry, and the defire of convenience, which has been spreading for fome years through this part of the kingdom, in every department of rural economy". The dwellings are well lighted, and confist of 3 or more apartments; and the farmers have generally a clock in every family, and other furniture in proportion, comfortable and convenient.-They have kilns for drying grain, with brick floors, and fome with cast iron floors.

Cattle. In the carfe farms, few black cattle are kept, but they pay great attention to the rearing of horses. In the

more

* About 20 years ago, the houfes were meanly constructed, without light, without air, and without accommodation, which must have been very injurious to the health of the inhabitants, and, together with the wetnefs of the foil, proved the concomitant caufes of premature old age, and of many local distempers. The late ARCHIBALD STIRLING of Kier, and most of the other proprietors, at the end of the laft leafes, inclosed and fubdivided the farms, built neat fteadings of houfes in centrical places, and covered them with tiles or blue flates.

more elevated parts of the parish, the farmers rear more cows, and pay confiderable attention to the dairy, which to them is a great fource of profit. Their foil is well adapted for pafture, whereas the clay foil is more productive in bearing crops of grain. There is no mountainous ground in the parish, and therefore there are no fheep farms; fome large inclofures, which are let to graziers, are ftocked with fheep: And from the richness of their grafs, and their vicinity to the market, they make good returns.

Mofs. It is evident, from a variety of circumflances, that the flat land in this neighbourhood was formerly covered with a stratum of mofs. This mofs was compofed of the de. ciduous parts of trees, which fprung up from the rich bed of clay that was expofed, when the fea retired from that extenfive valley, in which the Forth flows from the head of Monteath to Borrowftounnefs. Marine fhells are found in the body of this clay. The roots of large trees are found adhering to its furface, and their trunks and branches are mingled with the mofs above; which is a fufficient proof that there was no mofs when the trees were growing *.

Woods.

By what cause thofe trees, which in this valley are moftly oak, were felled, is not, perhaps, fo evident; but by whatever cause this took place, when the trees fell, the whole plain must have been an immenfe and wild morafs, when the water from the higher grounds was interrupted in its progress, and rendered ftagnant by leaves, and branches, and large logs of wood. The richness of the foil below would foon produce a rank growth of the long graffes, and other plants peculiar to marshy ground. When the furface was fomewhat confolidated by the annual decay of these plants, it would become a vast quag-mire, acquiring a gradual confiftency, enabling it to carry heath on the top. From being flow mofs it would become firmer, espe cially at the fides, where there was leaft water, and where the mofs was lefs deep, by reason of the higher ground dipping in

το

Woods and Orchards.-There is a great variety of planted trees on the higher grounds, which thrive well, fhelter the country,

to it by an inclined plane.-The rivers being scarcely able to force their way through this defert, on which no four-footed creature durft venture for a long tract of time, deposited their tribute of flime, and meliorating particles of fine earth, upon the banks which produced a strip of rich land along their course. These strips of fine arable land, on the brinks of the rivers, are ftill difcernible in all this country, while mofs, in many places, retains its antient poffeffion, between them and the higher grounds farther back, by which it is furrounded. It is also probable, that these banks of earth, formed on the verge of the rivers, contributed to hold back the water in the morafs, and to increase its depth, or the altitude of the mofs, as they grew higher, by a continual acceffion of more foil with every inunda

tion.

This may be the manner in which all deep moffes are formed. The thin ftratum of mofs on dry ground, which is produced folely by the leaves, and other deciduous parts of heath, is entirely out of the queftion. All moffes, of any confiderable depth, are found in beds of greater or lefs extent, according to the distance of the rifing grounds, or other obstructions by which the morafs was inclofed, wherein they were formed. It is an abfurdity to alledge, that peat earth grows, any more than other earth. No fpecies of earth has vegetable life. It indeed produces plants which have vegetable life, and thefe plants, returning to their firft principles, increase the mold. The plants. which grow on dry ground, when not carried off, add to the ftaple of the foil, and form a mold, fimilar in its qualities to that on which they grew; and the plants, which are natural to Jand-locked moraffes, (among which that plant, ftrictly called mofs, is always to be found), the leaves, and branches, and bark of trees, where they happen to fall, uniformly produce a black mold, known by the name of peat earth.

In the middle of the carfe of Lecropt, there remained, till of late, 60 acres of mofs, originally formed in this manner. The people in the adjacent farms were in the practice of cutting peats from it, which rendered the mofs very irregular. The low mofs at the fides was from 4 to 6 feet deep, and the high mofs in the middle from 7 to 10 feet. This mofs was, about 8 years ago, taken in leafe from Mr Stirling of Kier, by a farmer in the neighbouring parish. He was baffled at first in many attempts to carry off the mofs; but by unwearied perfeve

rance