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We often speak of an
imaginary line from Helensburgh to Stonehaven as marking off the Highlands
from the Central Lowlands. This, however, is not the whole truth. For, while
part of Banffshire is certainly highland, its northern part is really
lowland—a statement holding good also for its eastern and western
neighbours. This lowland region on the Moray Firth is geologically,
topographically and meteorologically different from the highland region to
the south, and consequently differs considerably in density of population,
in products and in the occupations of the inhabitants.
Banffshire lies between
latitude 570 6' and S70 ¢2' north, and between longitude 2° 15' and 3° 40'
west. To the east and south it has Aberdeenshire; to the west the shires of
Inverness and Moray.
Near the coast the surface is
comparatively level and is mostly of fine, open, undulating country, of
rich, highly cultivated soil. In the south and south-east it is mountainous,
with extensive and good farms however in the fertile glens. The chief
mountain ranges, rivers and strike of the stratified rocks, run from
south-west to north-east, the whole county being an extensive slope in the
same direction, from the Grampians to the Moray Firth.
In the south are productive
deer-forests, and some of the grouse-moors, extending to tens of thousands
of acres, are among the finest in Scotland.
In other aspects, too,
Banffshire stands pre-eminent. Despite its comparatively short sea-board, it
has a greater wealth than any other county in herring-fishing plant and
stands supreme in the size and the value of its herring-fishing fleet,
propelled either by steam or motor engine. Along its shores, from the bay of
Gamrie westward to Portgordon, is the largest aggregation of herring and
line fishermen, who, in the herring fisheries of Scotland, and only to a
less extent in those of England and Ireland, exercise a decisive influence.
Not a few fishermen from the county were selected by the Congested Districts
Board to introduce and teach Scottish fishing methods in Ireland, and
requests have come from Japan for them to undertake similar work there. The
manufacture of malt whisky represents a large and important interest, and
probably the county output of spirits is the largest in Scotland. For many
years Banffshire has possessed an advanced system of agriculture, and
farming may be taken as the leading industry. With a comparatively mild
climate along a considerable width of the seaboard, agricultural conditions
are wonderfully favourable. But in districts such as Glenrinnes, the Cabrach,
Kirkmichael and parts of Glenlivet, where cultivated land climbs from the
valleys up the hillsides and abuts on the heather, the more or less absolute
failure of a crop is not unknown, and in some years in these high altitudes
the storms of the northern December see cereal crops lying unsecured,
destroyed by weather and consumed by game. In the large parish of Cabrach,
an extensive area of which is moorland, hill and forest, is the farm of
Reekimlane: it was the only "reekin' lum" left in the parish in a time of
physical stress and hardship caused by crop failures. Besides agriculture,
fishing and distilling, there are minor industries —boat-building, tweed
manufacture, the making of agricultural implements, lime-burning and the
like; but these are not of the same general importance.
Banffshire has for long been
noted for its love of education, and the most potent export indeed, is not
its whisky, its black cattle, or its herrings, but young men and women
fitted by education and discipline to play a creditable part in the affairs
of life. The teachers of the county enjoy the benefit of the bequest of
James Dick, a West Indian and London merchant, born at Forres in 1743, who
died in 1828, and left £113,000 to promote higher learning among the parish
schoolmasters of Aberdeenshire, Banffshire and Moray. The influence of the
bequest has been most beneficial in encouraging country schools to maintain
a high standard of education. Such schools as those of Banff, Fordyce,
Keith, Tomintoul and others have for many years occupied an important place
in the higher educational activities of the county, and through them there
is maintained an intimate connection with the University of Aberdeen. At a
meeting in the county, Professor Laurie, after an experience of 35 years as
Dick Bequest Visitor, said that he had some knowledge of what was going on
in America, Germany and France and he would assure them it was a fact, as he
had stated, that Banffshire stood quite at the head of all educational
effort and machinery and efficiency of any part of the civilised world he
knew of or read of.
The magnificent sea-cliffs
and the fine sea-views attract artists. Many visitors come annually to the
bathing-places and the golf links with their bracing air—bracing it must be
for the breezes sweep off the sea straight from the Arctic Zone with no land
between the Banffshire coast and the North Pole. Inland, too, the summer
visitor resorts to places like Dufftown and Tomintoul, while in Cairngorm
and Ben Macdhui the mountaineer finds fit kingdoms to conquer. The geologist
and the naturalist will also discover much of interest in the county. |
