Edinburgh Magazine 1761

The Edinburgh Magazine (1761)

The parish tho' mountainous is exceeding good for pasturage, affording great store of sheep, which is the chief commodity the inhabitants depend on; there are storemasters here whose rooms contain more than ninety scores of old sheep, besides lambs. They have also a great deal of black cattle; some of them will have above thirty milk cows, besides others which they keep in proportion; and each of them as much tallage (a few rooms (farms) excepted) as affords them as much corn and bear, as mostly maintains their families, except it be in time of dearth.The women here are exceeding fine dairymaids, and make a good deal of butter and cheese; the former they mostly use for mixing tar, for the laying of their sheep. I have seen cheeses four stone troy in weight, made of ewe milk there, which they sell at a great price. They scarcely at any time sell any of their cheeses below four shillings per stone at the first hand, and I never eat any in my life more palatable than what this parish afford. Few places can equal them for breeding of horses, of which they have great score.Some of the inhabitants will have twenty, and scarce anyone has below six. They have plenty of moss, which they cut into peats, and dry them in summer-time for fuel. They have also coal and limestone in great plenty in every room or mailing; so that each family, if they please, may dig and find coal and limestone below their house floors.

There is also plenty of free stone there. The thing they mostly want is wood, which is very scarce here. The muirs afford great store of wild fowl such as the heath-cock and heathhen, partridges, green and grey plover, and a bird with a long beak called a whaap, duck and drake, and hares in great plenty, which makes it a fine place for game in the summer.

The chief mountain in the shire is here, and takes its rise about 24 miles from the sea. This mountain is of great height, has two tops, and goes under the name of Carntable. It is seen a great way off, and has a trough cut out of a rock, 12 feet long, 6 feet broad, and 8 feet deep, which always stands almost full of pure spring water, near the top of the mountain; of which several fabulous stories are told, such as, that the Picts made use of this cistern for steeping heather, of which they made a delicious drink.There is not a more delightful place in the summer, nor a finer air in all Scotland than here, nor a more industrious frugal people than the inhabitants; there is none in the nation that will take a more hearty bottle when occasions offers than they. There are few or no poor people here, at the most not above three at a time, whom they plentifully maintain by a fund they annually raise; and there is scarce any parish whatever that can say they ever saw any of the inhabitants of the Muir Kirk of Kyle begging; I dare say there is none.