On crossing the country from Jardine Hall to Closeburn, Aug. 9. 1831, we passed the farm of Cumroo. The farm-house and farmery are ample and most substantial-looking buildings. The dwelling-house is more than usually large, with two rooms in its width; a part of its exterior wall is covered with large well-trained fruit trees; and there is an excellent kitchen-garden, well stocked, and apparently in good order, in which a professed gardener (judging from his blue apron) was at work; so that the whole, had it not been, for the farm-yard behind, might very easily have been taken for a mansion residence. Passing this house, and advancing about a furlong, we came to a row of fourteen cottages occupied by yearly servants of the farmer and occupant of the large house, who, we were told, came from the best cultivated district in Scotland, East Lothian. Observing that to every door in the row of cottages there was but one window, we entered one of them, and found a woman sitting at a table, writing a letter (which seemed in a very good hand for a person in her rank of life), while she rocked the cradle with her foot. The room, which comprised the whole cottage, was about 14 ft. square, without a ceiling, and open to the roof; the floor was of earth, and the walls were left rough, just as the stones were put together in building, but whitewashed: there was a fireplace, but only one fixed window of four small panes. In this room there were two box beds, placed end to end, and behind them a space of about 2 ft. in width for fuel and lumber. The furniture and utensils, though scanty, were clean and neat; more especially when contrasted with the floor, which, underneath the beds, was of earth, quite loose; though, near the fire, were laid some flat stones, which the woman said her husband had picked up and put down himself. The cottage window, as already observed, was fixed, and incapable of opening to give air. There was no back door, and no opening either in the roof or walls for ventilation, except the entrance door and the chimney. There was no appendage, or garden ground of any sort, behind these cottages; but, across the road, in front of them was a narrow strip of ground, divided so as to allow one fall (36 yds. square) to each cottage. In these gardens there was no structure of any kind.
