KINCARDINESHIRE

KINCARDINESHIRE, or, as it is frequently called, the Mearns, a county in Scotland, situated between 56° 43' and 57° 5' north latitude, and 1° 47' and 2° 30' west longitude, from Greenwich, is bounded on the east by the German Ocean, on the north by the river Dee and Aberdeenshire, and on the west and south by the county of Angus or Forfar. It is of a triangular form, extending 32 miles from south-west to north-east, and where broadest, 24 miles from south to north, and contains 380 square miles, or nearly 243,444 English acres, besides about two miles of lakes.

About the half of the area of this county consists of hills and heaths, of little value; somewhat more than a fourth is in regular cultivation, and the remainder is partly improvable land, and partly planted. The most productive land lies along the coast from the town of Stonehaven to the river North Esk, which forms the boundary with Forfarshire, and in the How (hollow) of the Mearns, a continuation of the valley of Strathmore, a district which lies to the westward of the coast lands, and immediately south from the Grampians. The Grampians, comprising a third of the area, stretch through its whole breadth from west to east, and, with very few exceptions, are exceedingly sterile and rugged, and very thinly inhabited. About three miles from the coast, this tract rises to the height of from 500 to 600 feet, after which a succession of dark brown hills rapidly increase in altitude, till, at the western extremity of the county, about twenty miles from the sea, the highest of them, Mount Battock, springs to the height of 3500 feet.

The climate of Kincardineshire varies much in its different districts, but is, upon the whole, more rigorous than that of other parts of Scotland in nearly the same latitude. This is chiefly owing to a large proportion of its surface being occupied with the Grampians, on some parts of which snow remains all the year. According to tables given in the Agricultural Survey, the averages of the years 1805, 1806, and 1807, afford a medium of 43.8 of heat, 127 days of rain, 30 of snow, and 208 of dry weather.

There is no coal in this county, and limestone is far from being abundant. Native iron, in detached pieces, has been found at Balnakettle, in the parish of Fettercairn, where there is no indication of iron ore. Granite, basalt, puddingstone, and sandstone, are the prevailing rocks, especially the first, of which, with few exceptions, the Grampians are composed. Blocks of granite are scattered over the surface, particularly on the north; and much of the soil in this quarter has been formed from the decomposition of this rock. Along the coast, south from Stonehaven, there is a very fertile soil, consisting of decomposed basalt, or rotten rock, as it is called; and here also is a soil remarkably full of small round stones, which, though on this account a little more troublesome to cultivate, is nevertheless very productive. Puddingstone also abounds in this quarter; in the parish of Kinneff it is formed into millstones; in other places, it is in small pieces, which sometimes falling out of the precipitous front which much of the sea coast

Kincardine-shire. assumes, leave convenient recesses for the incubation of sea-fowls. Sandstone prevails in the tract along the coast, and also in the How of the Mearns, the soil of which is a loam of various qualities, but generally fertile, and of a colour resembling that of the sandstone, which is for the most part red or grey. Moss, moor, and beds of barren gravel abound even in the lower parts of the county. The banks of the Dee, on the north boundary, are well covered with wood; and in the How there are many thriving plantations; but much of the coast lands are naked, and the Grampian district, throughout its whole extent in this county, has an aspect remarkably gloomy and desolate. The hill of Cloachnabane, 2370 feet high, is distinguished by a mass of naked rock upon its summit, from 80 to 100 feet in perpendicular height, which, when viewed from a short distance, has much the appearance of the ruins of a fortification.

Waters. The rivers are the Dee, which flows for about eight miles through the northern part of the county, and is the boundary for fourteen miles more between this and Aberdeenshire; and the North Esk, which for about ten miles separates it from Forfarshire. Of the other streams, none of which are considerable, the principal are the Cowie, the Carron, and the Bervie, which fall into the sea; the Luther, which joins the North Esk; and the Dye, the Avon, and the Canny, which discharge themselves into the Dee. The Loch of Drum, partly in Aberdeenshire, and the Loch of Leys, both in the Dee side or northern district, each of them between two and three miles in circumference, are the only lakes worthy of notice. In the Loch of Leys there is a small artificial island, founded on piles of oak, on which are the ruins of an edifice, about which tradition is silent.

Estates. In 1807, Kincardineshire was divided among eighty proprietors, including two communities, fifteen or sixteen of whom held in feu. According to the Agricultural Survey of that year, the large estates had been long in the same families, two of them for 650 years, and about two-thirds of the whole county had been thus possessed for more than a century. In 1811, the number of estates was eighty-six, and of the freeholders seventy-three. The valued rent is £74,921, 1s. 4d. Scots, about a fourth of which then belonged to estates held under entail; and, in the same year, the rent of the lands, as returned under the property-tax act, was £159,895, 19s. 2d., and of the houses £9235, 2s. Sterling. The cultivated parts are in general divided into farms of less than 200 English acres, among which there are many spots, held directly from the landlords, of only five or six acres. In the hilly districts the farms are necessarily large, but of so little value, that some extensive tracts in the Grampians, from the abundance of game, afford a higher rent, when let out to sportsmen for the season, than could be got from farmers. The rent of corn land may be from 20s. to 25s. an acre, though much of it is higher. Few of the leases are for more than nineteen years, and many of them are for shorter periods.

Agriculture. Modern agriculture has not made such general progress in Kincardineshire, as in the more southerly counties of Scotland, yet nowhere have proprietors (among whom the late Mr Barclay of Urie was,

in this respect, the most conspicuous) incurred a Kincardine-shire. greater outlay per acre in the improvement of land. In some instances, the removal of stones, preparatory to cultivation, has cost about £20 an acre. All the different kinds of corn, pulse, roots, and herbage grown in Scotland are cultivated here. Upon the pastures of the arable land the stock of cattle kept is nearly at the rate of one for every Scots acre, but five acres of the high lands are required for the support of a single sheep.

Towns and Villages. The towns and villages of Kincardineshire are but few in number, and small in respect to population; and its manufactures are inconsiderable. Stonehaven, the county town, is situated on the coast, about fourteen miles from Aberdeen; the town, with the parish of Dunottar, in which it stands, contained, in 1810, 1886 inhabitants, who are partly employed in rope-making, and in the manufacture of canvas and osnaburges. Bervie, or Inverbervie, a royal burgh at the mouth of the Bervie, about ten miles south from Stonehaven, employs about two-thirds of its population, amounting, in 1811, to 927, in the same manufactures, with the addition of a soap-work, a spinning-mill for lint, a bleachfield, and a thread factory. Gourdon, the sea-port of Bervie, about a mile and a half to the south-east, is a small place, chiefly occupied by fishermen. The village of Johnshaven, four miles south of Bervie, contained about 1000 inhabitants, partly mechanics, and partly seamen. Laurencekirk has about 1300 inhabitants, and is noted for its beautiful varnished snuff-boxes, made of wood. At Inverie there has been a woollen manufactory on a small scale for several years. The other villages are Auchenblae, Marykirk, Fettercairn, St Cyrus, Drumlethie;—a few others for fishing are scattered along the coast.

Commerce. The external commerce of the county, besides its trade in sheep and cattle, consists chiefly in the import of timber, coal, and lime, and the export of grain and fish, at the ports of Stonehaven, Gourdon, and Johnshaven. In 1807, Stonehaven had 8 vessels, of from 30 to 150 tons; Gourdon 6 vessels, carrying in all 192 tons; and Johnshaven 12, amounting to 197 tons; and about 300 hands were employed in the white-fishery, from villages spread over a line of coast extending from Aberdeen to Montrose, a distance of 37 miles. The value of the fish caught was estimated at £6000. The salmon-fishing belonging to this county, on the North Esk and the Dee, and on the Water of Bervie, was then let at about £2700 a-year.

Antiquities. Among the antiquities of Kincardineshire the most worthy of notice is a Roman camp, remarkably entire, near the mansion house of Fordoun; Fenella's Castle, about a mile and a half west from Fettercairn, where there are the remains of a vitrified wall; and Dunottar Castle, long the residence of the Earls Marischal, about a mile south from Stonehaven, on a peninsula, projecting into the sea. The regalia of Scotland were deposited in this castle during the civil wars of the seventeenth century.

Parishes, &c. Kincardineshire contains eighteen entire parishes, and part of three more, two of which are partly in Aberdeenshire, and the greater part of the third in Forfarshire. The parishes to the south of the Gram-

pians, thirteen in number, form the Presbytery of Fordoun, which belongs to the Synod of Angus and Mearns, the rest are attached to the Presbyteries of Aberdeen and Kincardine O'Neil. In conjunction with Angus, this county furnishes a regiment of militia, and a few years ago, it raised two regiments of volunteers, which were afterwards formed into one regiment of local militia, containing 816 rank and file. The county sends one member to Parlia-

ment, and Bervie, its only royal burgh, unites with Kincardine-shire, Aberdeen, Brechin, Arbroath, and Montrose, in electing a member for the burghs. The population in 1800 and 1811 will be seen from the annexed abstract.

See Beauties of Scotland, Vol. IV.; Robertson's General View of the Agriculture of Kincardineshire; The General Report of Scotland, Vol. I.; and Playfair's Description of Scotland, Vol. II. (A.)

KING'S COUNTY, an inland county in the province of Leinster in Ireland, bounded by Meath on the north, Kildare and Queen's County on the east, Tipperary on the west and south-west, and Galway, from which it is separated by the Shannon on the west. From east to west, its general length is about seventeen Irish miles, its greatest breadth, from north to south, thirty-one, and it contains, within an outline of one hundred and thirty miles, seven hundred and fourteen English square miles, or about 457,000 English acres. Almost the half of this consists of bogs, mountains, and waste, and the remainder is arable, meadow, and pasture of a medium quality. It is divided into eleven baronies, and fifty-two parishes, the latter belonging to the sees of Kildare, Killaloe, Meath, Clonfert, and Ossory.

The form of this county is very irregular. Its breadth on the western side is suddenly contracted by Queen's County on the south-east, and further to the east, by Kildare and Meath. A small district of it is entirely surrounded by Kildare. The interior is, with few exceptions, a dead flat, though considerably elevated. The only mountains are those of Sliebh Bloom on the boundary with Queen's County, a range which extends for about fifteen Irish miles, and has but one pass, called the Gap of Glandine, which is steep, craggy, and very narrow. The Bog of Allen occupies a considerable tract on the north-east.

The soil of the arable land is, for the most part, either moorish or gravelly, the former tolerably pro-

ductive in dry, and the latter in moist seasons, but neither of them naturally fertile. Limestone, and limestone gravel, the means of their improvement, abound every where. The pastures, though in many parts fine, are not luxuriant; better adapted for sheep than cattle, and very favourable to the growth of fine wool. Much of the mountain district has an argillaceous soil, thickly interspersed with rocks of sandstone, and a deep irreclaimable bog often occurs at its base; but towards the centre of this range, where limestone prevails, there is much good pasture, and here the base of the hills, which is composed of a stiff clay, produces abundant crops of corn. The only streams worth notice, besides the Shannon, on the western boundary, and the Barrow, which for a small distance separates this from Queen's County, are the two rivulets, Brosna, which fall into the former. The Boyne also touches this district on the north-east. There is only one small lake, Lough Pallis: another, Lough Annagh, is partly in Queen's County. The canal from Dublin to the Shannon passes through the county from east to west, along its whole length. The minerals and fossils, hitherto discovered, are iron ores in small quantity, manganese, ochre, marl, chalk, and potter's clay, with sandstone, limestone, and limestone gravel, already mentioned. Mineral waters occur in several places.

King's County is divided into large estates, and many of their owners do not reside; but much of the land is held on leases, in perpetuity, and the

holders of these form a respectable class. The principal proprietors are Lords Digby, Ross, and Charleville. Farms were formerly very large, not unfrequently of the extent of 2000 acres, but their size has been diminished, and such as are considered large do not now exceed, on an average, 400 English acres. Many are as small as twenty acres, though the medium size of the smaller class may be double this. Most of the arable land is tolerably inclosed, chiefly with hedges of whithorn, which grows here to a great size. Partnership leases and subtenancy are less common than in some other parts of Ireland. Yet the condition of the tenantry and the peasantry does not seem to be materially more improved. The farm buildings of every description are generally very bad, the cottages in particular; and yet those who have been long accustomed to these miserable cabins, are said to prefer them to more comfortable dwellings, which, after having been erected by some of the proprietors, were for some time allowed to stand unoccupied. In other respects, also, there is little difference to remark between the condition of the lower classes in this and the Irish counties before described. The English language is pretty general; the peasants speak both that and the Irish with almost equal facility.

Wheat, oats, barley, and potatoes, are the most common crops. Reducing the Irish acre and corn measures to English, the average produce of wheat is stated in the Agricultural Report to be no more than sixteen bushels; of barley and oats, it is about thirty-two bushels; and of potatoes, only four tons per acre. Both oxen and horses are employed in labour; the plough is sometimes drawn by only two of either, in a few instances by two heifers. Yet this and their other implements are not generally of a good construction. The thrashing machine has been in use in this district for about twenty years. Limestone gravel is much used as a manure, with the best effects, both on tillage and grass lands.

The leases were formerly for thirty-one years or three lives, but the more common period of late is twenty-one years, to which the life of the tenant in possession at the end of it is frequently added. Some tenants hold for lives renewable for ever, paying a renewal fine equal to half a year's rent or more on the fall of every life. Modern leases often contain a prohibition against alienating. Nothing is so much complained of among the tenantry as the mode in which tithes are collected. "I really apprehend," says Sir Charles Coote, the author of the Agricultural Report for the county, "it would be a very difficult matter to mislead the lower orders of the country folk, was there a reasonable modification of tithe; and they seem one and all discontented, not so much with the institution, as the severe mode of collecting the tax, which is here unusually oppressive." The incumbent, Sir Charles thinks, is not to blame; but he lets the tithe to a proctor, and the proctor relets, or transfers his lease to another, and so on, till the person who at last collects the tithe, and necessarily pays a heavy rack-rent, has every inducement to exact it with the utmost rigour.

There is no manufacture carried on here to any

considerable extent. That of linen is the most general, yet not upon a large scale. There are breweries and distilleries at which the greater part of the oats and barley grown in the county are consumed, little of either being used in the food of the lower classes. Coarse woollens are made for their own clothing, as in other parts of Ireland.

The market and post-towns are Banagher, Philips-town, the county town, Balliboy, Birr or Parsons-town, Tullamore, Edenderry, Shinrone, and Clara. Philipstown and Banagher returned two members each to the Irish Parliament, but none of the towns are represented in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The only members are two for the county. According to Wakefield, the Catholics are to the Protestants as eight to one. In 1801, the population was estimated at 76,000; it is said to be now about 130,000.

See Sir Charles Coote's Agricultural Survey, 1801; and the Works of Young, Beaufort, Newenham, Wakefield, and the Statistical Account of Ireland, formerly referred to under the Irish counties.