Bairds of Gartsherrie:   page 4.

At an early period Mr. Alexander Baird proved himself an energetic and skilful farmer and land improver. His confidence in his own skill, his knowledge of land, and his foresight as to the rising value of it, were shown in the fact already mentioned of his agreeing to pay his uncle John the sum of £300 for the remaining six years of the lease. The payment is stated to have been "for improvements" as well for "the benefit of the tack for the remaining years thereof;" but, in point of fact, there had been no improvement made on the land, in the proper meaning of the term. There were no fences at all; no roads, no drains, and not a straight rig on one of the farms. They were all lying under the old fashioned style of cultivation namely, in broad, crooked rigs, with frequently a strip of land left unploughed between them, called a balk, or bauk, on which was thrown all the weeds, stones, and other rubbish gathered from the cultivated portion. Never more than about two-thirds of the land was cropped.

With his finances crippled by the payment to his uncle, and under the uncertainty of obtaining a renewal of the tack, it is probable that Mr. Baird did very little in the way of improvement during the six years remaining of his uncle's lease. But when he obtained leases of the whole of the farms for nineteen years, the improvements were commenced in earnest, although the rent was 45s. per acre, an increase of more than a hundred per cent on the former rent, and four hundred per cent above that in the lease of 1764. The farms were now divided into fields of from eight to fifteen acres; fences were formed, which remain to this day; the old, uneven, and crooked ridges were levelled and made straight; and so thoroughly was this done, by the use of both plough and spade, that no vestige of the old ridges could be seen. All this was done in the first ten or twelve years of the leases; but it was only accomplished by a great amount of hard labour.
The best horses and the best men that could be got were always kept on the farm; and the amount of work done by these men, and done willingly, would appear almost incredible to the farmers of the present day.

The common routine in the winter months was for the men to go to the barn about four o'clock in the morning, when two men would thrash a boll and a half of oats. There were no thrashing machines in those days. They had breakfast at nine; after which the ploughman went to the field, and each man would plough an acre of ground if stubble land, or three quarters of an acre if lea. David Russell, James Robin (the son of old Jean Shillingford), James Rankin, and Gavin Lawson, were good ploughmen in those hard-working days, and were all great favorites of Mr. Baird. Robin and Rankin, after they had left, were frequently re-engaged for a season. It was no uncommon thing for one of these men, with a pair of good horses, to plough sixty acres of land during the winter months. When ploughing matches were first instituted, the time allowed for ploughing one Scots acre of lea land was only ten hours; and many of the competitors accomplished their task within that time. At the first ploughing match in Old Monkland, Mr. Baird's ploughman, David Russell, if he did not get a prize, was, by a long way, the first done with his lot, which was always half an acre Scots. At the present time, the lot for each plough at ploughing matches is the half of an imperial acre- the imperial acre being about a fifth less than the Scots and the time allowed for this smaller lot is at the rate of from twelve to fifteen hours for an imperial acre; thus reducing the darg at the plough by at least fifty per cent.

The only implements in these days were the plough and harrow, and the spade, scythe, sickle, and flail. The plough and harrow were both made of wood, and even the tines of some harrows were of wood. The plough was of simple construction, as may be judged from the fact that a wright in Old Monkland, John Craig, used to make a plough in a day. Everything was done by hand labour, and every farm servant required to be an adept in the use of the implements. The amount of work which was got through with the sickle would hardly be credited nowadays. The day's darg for four reapers was one Scots acre-equal to nearly an acre and a quarter imperial.

Mr. Baird let the reaping of one of the fields on his farm called "Hareleas" to two women of the name of Aitken, for the sum of 8 shillings per Scot acre, and these two women cut between them half an acre every day, besides doing the binding and stooking. They thus earned 2 shillings a day each, a large sum for that time, when wages were so much lower than they are at present.

The large amount of work thus performed by farm labour was not in any way the effect of undue exaction by the, master. No labourer, in particular no farm labourer required urging to do a good day's work When there was a band of shearers, the difficulty was to keep them from "kemping"- doing the work in some cases too fast, to the wasting of the crop. Every man and woman was taught to use the sickle. They hired themselves to the farmers at a fixed sum for the whole of the harvest, and they all lived in the farm-house, excepting the cottars residing on the farm. Harvest time was a very joyous season of the year, although the work was hard.

The reaping machine has superseded this hard work; while the threshing-machines, churning-machines, cheese-making machines and the various sorts of grubbers, hoers, potato-diggers, turnip thinners, clod-crushers, and the like, have now greatly reduced farm labour. Were the farmers of the present day to be obliged to use the implements which alone were available to Mr. Baird when he engaged to pay forty-five shillings an acre for his land, the entire produce of a farm of similar rent would be absorbed in the working expenses, and the tenant would be unable to afford to pay a shilling of rent.

As little would it be believed at the present day how simple and primitive was the house accommodation with which well to do farmers like Mr. Baird were content.

The farm house at High Cross was a long low building, much lower than it is now, with corresponding low-roofed offices. The accompanying plate is a restored view of it, showing what it was down to the time John Baird left it to reside at Lochwood, in 1847. On one occasion, at a meeting of the Heritors of Old Monkland, at which Mr. John Baird was present, the schoolmaster was complaining of the state in which his house was, and in particular that the wind blew in under the door. "Oh," said Mr. Baird "that's nothing. The dog comes in below mine." and this was true.

The centre of the step below had become so much worn, and the bottom of the old door was also worn so much that an opening was left, through which the dog habitually passed. The house was covered with tiles; and Mr John Baird and his brothers, who, in their father's lifetime, slept in the garret, frequently awoke in winter with the coverlet of their bed sprinkled with snow blown in through openings in the tiles

It is believed that Mr. Alexander Baird had not a cart wheel on his farm when he first commenced. The scanty crop was carried home on a sledge, and the manure was carried out in creels suspended from horses' backs.
As an instance of his enterprise and knowledge of the value of land, may be mentioned a sub-lease which Mr. Alexander Baird took from Mr. Young, of Cuilhill, of a piece of land called Carlin Croft, part of the Gartsherrie estate, and on which the ironworks now partly stand. It consisted of over twenty acres, and Mr. Baird took it at the enormous rent of £45 per acre for four crops. The first crop, which was wheat, had been sown, and was brairded when he took the land; but for the three remaining years of the lease the ground was to be ploughed and sown by himself. The rent was divided thus: £21 per acre for the first crop, and £8 per acre for each of the subsequent crops. The wheat crop yielded fourteen bolls per acre, and was sold at £3 per boll- thus clearing £42 per acre. The value of the straw was sufficient to pay the working expenses of that crop. The other three crops also yielded a large return.
This was in 1811, when the war prices were at their highest. The peace which followed the battle of Waterloo brought down the prices of all produce. About this time, Mr. Baird had become well known as one of the first farmers of the day; and he was looked up to and consulted by both landlords and tenants as to the improvement of land, and as to the best manner of conducting farming operations.

Mr. Baird took a lead in the formation of the Langloan Company of Volunteers. The original document, agreeing to form the company, and containing the signatures of the parties volunteering, is preserved. The first signature is that of "Alexander Baird, Kirkwood;" and the second is "William Baird, High Cross." The paper bears also the signature of "James Baird." This James was the second son of Robert Baird, tenant in Woodend, previously in Stan. Alexander Baird, however, was not then residing at Kirkwood; but he continued to possess the farm, and was generally spoken of as "Kirkwood." The document has no date, but the paper mark bears the year "1818" and long before that time Mr. Baird had removed to High Cross.

In 1819 Mr. Baird obtained, from Mr. Buchanan of Drumpellier, a lease of the farm of Newmains, near Langloan. He went to reside there in or about the year 1820, and continued to do so till the time of his death, when the lease was resigned to the landlord. As already mentioned, Mr. and Mrs. Baird were careful in the education of their children.

Children of Alexander Baird 5th Generation

The eldest son, William, received his first education at the parish school of Old Monkland, under Mr. Cowan, father of the well-known teacher Dr. Cowan of the Grange school at Sunderland, at which many young Scotsmen were educated. He was afterwards put under the care of Mr. Cleland, who succeeded Mr. Cowan in the parish school of Old Monkland. Unlike the most of his brothers, William never took to hard manual work, and consequently he was kept longer at school than they were. Although never an expert scholar, he acquired a good knowledge of book-keeping, which proved of great use to him in his after-life. His father, believing that farming would be his occupation, sent him to Berwickshire to learn the methods of farming practised in that district. He remained there a considerable time, and, being very industrious, he soon acquired a competent knowledge of the subject. But it was not the kind of farming suited for Lanarkshire, and William's taste, besides, did not lie in that direction.

Mr Baird having been previously engaged in the working of coal on a small scale- he had in April, 1809, acquired from Peter Mann, William Yates, and Stephen Moore, the lease held by them of Woodside coal work in the neighbourhood of Dalserf -it occurred to him that William might find, in the management of a coal-work, an occupation more suitable to his taste than that of farming. Mr. Baird accordingly, being a great favourite with Miss Alexander of Airdrie House, who was then in charge of that estate, obtained from her, about the year 1816, a lease of the coal-field of Rochsolloch, and William was sent to manage it. He was then about twenty years of age. By great attention and industry, and by his judicious management, this colliery proved very successful. William was then living with his father at High Cross, and he went every day to the coal-work, with the exception of Wednesdays, on which days he went to Glasgow to look after the sale of the coal, his brother Alexander (the third son) having been, soon after the opening of the colliery , installed there as salesman. John, the second son, continued his occupation as a farmer.

Alexander was the first of the family born at Kirkwood. With the others he was sent to school, sometimes to Old Monkland and sometimes to Langloan; and, like the rest, he was put to some daily work on the farm as soon as his strength was equal to it. Though not unwilling to work, he had the reputation among his brothers of being very well able to take care of himself, and, where there was any choice, of being able to select the easiest tasks. He was remarkable, however, for executing well and neatly whatever work he did. He attracted the notice of Captain Lawson of Cuparhead, with whom he became a favorite, and who used to call him the "wee wise body." But he was never a good scholar. He was remarkable for swiftness of foot, and he won the "broose " at the wedding of James Rankin, one of his father's ploughmen.

He continued at High Cross till he was sixteen years of age, when he was sent, as already mentioned, to Glasgow to be salesman of the coal which was being then sent there from Rochsolloch. This proved to him a very trying position, passing as he did from a simple country life to residence in a city like Glasgow, with little experience of the world, and no knowledge of the associates with whom he found himself brought in contact. The society to be found in the district of the Monkland canal basin, where his duties lay, was not of the best kind, and he was subjected to many temptations. He kept himself pretty free, however, from indulgence, and in this he owed much to the watchful care of his brother William. The latter, fancying that he observed some indications of his brother giving way, got his father to write him a letter of remonstrance and advice; and this had a powerful effect. Referring to this letter Mr. James Baird writes: "It induced him to form a resolution against bad habits and bad company, to which he adhered through life; and he always manifested a great contempt for those who yielded to them. This letter from his father was so cherished by Alexander, that he preserved it with the greatest care. "At his death it was found among his papers, being the only letter which he had preserved. He superintended the sale of the coal in Glasgow, for the long period of forty years, and he also gave attention to the sale of the iron. His duties in this department became important and onerous, and the transactions were on a very large scale; but so great was his sagacity and his knowledge of the parties with whom he dealt, that very few bad debts were made by the Company.

James, the fourth son, evinced, like his brothers William and Alexander, much sagacity and aptitude for business, and by the mechanical skill and great practical knowledge of details which, soon after joining the works, he acquired, he contributed much to the rise and success of the great undertakings of the Company.

He was born at the farm house, Kirkwood on the 5th of December, 1802, and was only five years of age when the family removed to High Cross. He received his education partly at the school kept by Mr. Robert Black at Langloan, and partly at the Parish School of Old Monkland; and attended at the latter till he was twelve years of age. But his attendance was irregular, and his early education was consequently imperfect. A great part of his knowledge was acquired afterwards, by earnest application to the work of erecting and repairing buildings and machinery, and by self-culture, amidst the interruptions and distractions of a very active life. When only twelve years old, he was found to be too useful on the farm to be spared for further schooling; and by the time he was fourteen he had been set to do men's work. Mr. James Baird, writing of this period of his life, says, "There were, indeed, no kinds of farm work which at that time I could not perform, and I became expert at them all.