80 



ON THE AGRICULTUEE OF THE COUNTY OF SUTHEKLAND. 



stoue, or 2s. 8d. per sheep ; and 6500 stones of white wool, 

 worth 22s. per stone, or 2s. 7d. per sheep. The total yield of 

 wool this year would thus be 344:1 below the average of the 

 preceding ten years. The follo^ving is pretty near the average 

 yield of wool per head in ordinary seasons : — 



Bent of Zand. — The annual rent of the Sutherland sheep 

 farms is fixed at so much per head of the number of sheep each 

 is estimated to carry throughout the whiter. Between 1844 

 . and 1846 Mr Andrew Hall of Calrossie, then liimself a large 

 sheep-farmer in the county, went over the whole pastoral range 

 of Sutherland, rearranging the boundaries of some of the larger 

 farms, estimating the number of sheep each would carry through- 

 out the winter, and fixing the rent per head to be asked for each 

 at the next letting, which began in 1852. Smce then rent has 

 been charged according to that estimate. Previous to 1852 no 

 tenant in the county paid more than' 3s. a-head, Mr Andrew 

 Hall himself being the first to pay 3s. 6d. a-head in that year 

 for Blarich. The rate of rent now ranges from 4s. to 7s. a-head, 

 the average being perhaps about 5s. 6d. The increase since 

 1852 is thus equal to close on 100 per cent. 



Zvsses of the Winter 1878-79. 



"Every twenty-second year is a bad one for the sheep- 

 farmer," was the laconic remark of an experienced and observ- 

 ing Sutherland sheep-farmer to the writer the other day. In 

 regard to the past hundred years, at any rate, the observation 

 has been almost literally true ; for are not 1772, 1794, 1816, 1838, 

 and 1860 ever to be remembered as years of great disaster among 

 flocks on the lulls of Scotland ? According to the twenty-two 

 years' rule, the ahnost unprecedented storm of last winter 

 (1878-79) came too soon, if it may not indeed be followed by 

 another severe season a year or two hence — just as the storm of 

 1814 was followed by that of 1816. Be this as it may, the 

 last winter was certainly one of the most disastrous ever ex- 

 perienced by Sutherland sheep-farmers. It has been stated, on 

 good authority, that on an average in each of these notable 

 years of disaster, Scotch sheep-farmers — at any rate those in 

 the northern counties — lost about one-fourth of their invested 

 capital. If a few farmers on the west coast are excepted, the loss 



