BUTE AND AKRAX. 35 



and north by the hill-tops forming the watershed between Brodick 

 and Lamlash districts, is another portion of Arran on which much 

 w^aste land has been reclaimed and pasture now exists where 

 once heather and stones held undisputed sway. \Vhen the farm 

 was taken by Mr Allan, senior, of Balnacoole, ni 1865, the arable 

 land consisted of about 126 acres ; now it forms 260 acres. More 

 land has been reclaimed from a wild state than arable land con- 

 sisted of in 1865. One of the greatest difficulties the energetic 

 tenant had to contend against, was the number of boulders found 

 about 6 or 9 inches under the surface, which impeded the path 

 of the plough when first going through the land. These boulders 

 are very common, and the soil interspersed with them is peculiar 

 to Arran. Going over the moor roads one sees, in places where 

 a deep cutting has been made to form the road, about 9 inches 

 of good red earth or moss, resting on a basis of large stones and 

 irravel. In Clauchlands much of the soil is lidit and friable, and 

 rests on a freestone formation, with the exception that to the 

 east of the steading and near the point the formation is whinstone 

 boulders. The farm has been all drained, wherever it required 

 it, at a uniform depth of 3 feet, although in some places, where 

 a tough subsoil of red till was encountered, it was found almost 

 impossible to go down any depth, and in other places the rock 

 had to be quarried to admit of the drains being put in at all. 

 The whole farm was limed once, and some parts of it have received 

 a second coat ; the quantity applied being the same as at Balna- 

 coole. The first ploughing at Clauchlands was done with the 

 single furrow plough drawn by a pair of horses.' — One fur being- 

 turned over coming down the hill, and the plough being slid up 

 the hill without a fur. After being ploughed the first time the land 

 was allowed to lie uncropped for two years, until the roots in the 

 turf rotted away. From that time it has been wrought on a 

 regular rotation. The reclamation took five years to complete, 

 and the cost per acre was from £10 to £15. Some of the reclaimed 

 land has now lain nine years uncropped, having only been turned 

 over the first time, and it is almost back into its wild state again. 

 In the autumn of 1869 an arrangement was entered into by 

 the proprietor (the Duke of Hamilton) and the tenant of 

 Glenree farm, according to which over 100 acres of unenclosed 

 rough land on Glenree were to be improved by enclosing, drain- 

 ing,liming, and cultivation — the l)ukecontributing£700 towards 

 <lefraying the cost of the work. The greater portion of the land 

 to be ini})rovcd had been under cultivation ])ruvious to 1830, 

 when the land was held by six tenants on the rig-about system. 

 In those days the rigs were always top-gathered, a wide space 

 beins left between theridws into which the stones were thrown, 

 and when reclamation works bet^an, it was all overgrown with 

 heather, bent-^rass, or foc'. The land was laid oil" into four fields 



