ON THE AGKICli;i'ri:K of the county of SUTHERLAND. 25 



Tlic Progress of tltc Past Seventy Years. 



Havinj4' perused the foregoing- soiaewliat disconnected notes 

 ret^iirdin^f the social and agricultural condition of the county 

 about the advent of the present century, the reader will be the 

 better prepared for a brief account of the progress that has been 

 made since the sjjirit of improvement first took practical form in 

 tlie county. This important event may be credited to 1800, in 

 which year the modern system of sheep-farming, which has gained 

 so wide a reputation for the county, was founded in Sutherland 

 by Messrs. Atkinson and N. Marshall, from Northumberland, 

 who, in that year, took an extensive sheep-walk from the i\Iar([uis 

 of Stallbrd near Lairg, and stocked it with Cheviot sheep. The 

 development of the sheep-farming will be more fully dealt with 

 afterwards. Here it will suffice to indicate very briefly the 

 rapidity of its growth and the enormous dimensions it has now 

 rciiched. The county was found admiraljly adapted to the Cheviot 

 sheep, and they fast drove out the Kerry and Blackfaced breeds. 

 In 1811 they numbered about 15,000, while during the next nine 

 years they increased to no fewer than 1 18,400. The next decade 

 added about .'"8,000, and between 1831 and 1857 the number rose 

 to about 200,000 ; while, since the latter year, they have exceeded 

 that by from 16,000 to 40,000. It will thus be seen that during 

 the first thirty years of the present century the occupation of the 

 straths and mountains of Sutherland was completely revolution 

 ized, and that the industry which has in later days so highly 

 distinguished that remote part of the United Kingdom had, in 

 little more than the short period mentioned, attained, so to speak, 

 almost to its full manhood. 



While the first thirty years of the present century wrought 

 a great change in the interior of the county, that period also 

 brought about considerable improvement in the districts in wliich 

 arable farming prevailed. Captain Henderson states that, during 

 the years between 1807 and 1811, "a general reform had begun 

 in the management of land on the eastern coast of the county 

 and that several farms were getting under the most approved 

 rotation, in so far as the occupiers (intelligent farmers from ]\Ioray- 

 shire) believed the soil and local situation would admit of it ; and 

 perhaps better farm offices are not to be found in Scotland " than 

 on some Sutherland farms. The reform thus spoken of spread 

 gradually through all the arable districts of the coimty, wiping 

 out all relics of the darker ages, such as wooden ploughs, basket- 

 carts, primitive systems of rotation, and fcal houses, and intro- 

 ducing in their stead an order of things entirely new. Better 

 attention was bestowed on the rearing of cattle, and the stock of 

 cattle, as well as that of horses and sheep, was very greatly im- 

 proved. Fields were squared, fences erected, new houses built. 



