Cullen |
Cullen |
"The country round Cullen has all the marks of improvement, owing to the indefatigable pains of the late noble owner, in advancing the art of agriculture and planting, and every other useful business, as far as the nature of the soil would admit. His success in the first was very great; the crops of beans, peas, oats and barley, were excellent; the wheat very good, but, through the fault of the climate, will not ripen till it is late, the harvest in these parts being in October. The plantations are very extensive, and reach to the top of Binn hill; but the further they extendfrom the bottoms, the worse they succeed.
The town of Cullen is mean; yet has about a hundred looms in it, there being a flourishing manufacture of linnen and thread, of which nearly fifty thousand pounds worth is annually made there and in the neighbourhood. Upwards of two thousand bolls of wheat, barley, oats and meal are paid annually by the tenants to their landlords, and by them sold to the merchants and exported: and besides, the upper parts of the parish yield peas, and great quantities of oats, which are sold by those tenants who pay their rents in cash."
from: A Tour in Scotland in 1769 by Thomas Pennant