These north-western parts are by no means fertile in corn. The
ground is naturally barren and moorish. The peasants are poorly
lodged, meagre in their looks, mean in their apparel, and
remarkably dirty. This last reproach they might easily wash off,
by means of those lakes, rivers, and rivulets of pure water, with
which they are so liberally supplied by nature. Agriculture
cannot be expected to flourish where the farms are small, the
leases short, and the husbandman begins upon a rack rent, without
a sufficient stock to answer the purposes of improvement. The
granaries of Scotland are the banks of the Tweed, the counties of
East and Mid-Lothian, the Carse of Gowrie, in Perthshire, equal
in fertility to any part of England, and some tracts in
Aberdeenshire and Murray, where I am told the harvest is more
early than in Northumberland, although they lie above two degrees
farther north. I have a strong curiosity to visit many places
beyond the Forth and the Tay, such as Perth, Dundee, Montrose,
and Aberdeen, which are towns equally elegant and thriving; but
the season is too far advanced to admit of this addition to my
original plan.
I am so far happy as to have seen Glasgow, which, to the best of
my recollection and judgment, is one of the prettiest towns in
Europe; and, without all doubt, it is one of the most flourishing
in Great Britain.
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