BUTE AND ARRAN. 33 



Rtclamation of Waste Lands. 



Having in the previous pages bestowed some little attention 

 ou a general review of agriculture in Arran, with special reference 

 to the condition of the smaller tenants, it is now our duty to 

 enter more fully into detail regarding the rarious improvements 

 which have been effected within recent years on the larger 

 farms. 



Unquestionably great advances have been made in the cultiva- 

 tion of the soil during the past thirty or forty years. This is chiefly 

 to be attributed to the introduction of farmers from the mainland, 

 who have been attracted to the island by the cheapness of the 

 rents, and the wide scope it affords for carrying out improve- 

 ments. The native farmers eyed these intruders at first with 

 jealousy, and even yet the Highlander affects to despise the Low- 

 lander, though at the same time he attempts to imitate his modes 

 of farming. The late Duke of Hamilton was once conversing with 

 one of his tenants in the Shiskan district. His Grace remarked on 

 the decadence of the Gaelic language in Arran, and inquired the 

 tenant's opinion as to its cause. The sturdy Highlander made 

 answer that it was all owing to the fact, that when a farm was 

 vacant it was generally let to a stranger in preference to a native. 

 Considering the way in which the natives in general appear to have 

 farmed prior to 1840, it is little wonder that a landlord, anxious 

 to improve his estate, should have preferred tenants possessed of 

 the needful capital, and willing to exert themselves to increase 

 the productiveness of the soil, instead of those whose only ambi- 

 tion was to live and die where thev and their fathers were born. 



I)r M*Naughton tells us that in 1840 improvements were being 

 pushed rapidly forward, and it was about that time that Mr 

 James Allan, now of Clauchlands, and late of Balnacoole, the 

 late Mr John Spiers, Benecarrigan, and others, commenced to 

 drain and lime waste lands on a somewhat extensive scale. 



When Mr Allan, senior, entered Balnacoole in 1839, it was im- 

 possible for a horse to be driven over every part of the farm, on 

 account of the numbers of exhausted peat-bogs lying full of stag- 

 nant water. These "bogs" were first filled up with turf, and the 

 surface made somewhat level, after which tlie fields were drained 

 and limed. On account of the depth of the moss it was found 

 impossible in many places to put down tile-drains, and moss-drains 

 formed with cut turf were laid at first 4 feet deep, and three main 

 drains were laid from 7 to 9 feet deep. These moss-drains ran clear 

 a long time, but the mossy surface has now been wrought of!, and 

 the horses' feet when ploughing sink into the drains, conse([uently 

 tile-drains liave Ijeen relaid on the sandy subs(jil. Afti-r being 

 first drained, and until the moss had become firm, these patclies 

 were not ploughed, but "delved" with the spade, Tin^ land on 



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