BUTE AND ARRAN. 37 



To the above sum there ought to be added the value of the 

 work of three pairs of horses and four men, but as no exact account 

 was kept of their time, or the yields of the crops, figures as to 

 the profit or loss on the operations cannot be given. However, the 

 tenant is of opinion that the crops over all would pay the cost 

 of keeping the horses, and men's wages, or nearly so. For every 

 sheep carried by this moorland before it was reclaimed, it will 

 now in its pastoral state carry 2 J sheep. 



The most recent works of reclamation in Arran have been 

 executed by the tenant of the Douglas Hotel, Brodick, who 

 farms Corriegills, Strathwillan, Barnhill, and Springbank. 

 About 500,000 tiles have been used in draining, and about a dozen 

 good sized fields have been added to the farms. Sixty or seventy 

 acres have been trenched with the spade. The same difficulty 

 has to be contended against in Brodick as in Balnacoole, that is, 

 the great quantity of iron ore water in the subsoil, which chokes 

 the drains, and necessitates their being frequently lifted. Drain- 

 ing costs from 3s. 6d. to 4s. per chain of 24 yards ; trenching 

 cannot be done for less than £6 per acre. Labourers well up in 

 draining and trenching cannot be secured in Arran, and squads 

 have to be brought from the mainland, which entails additional 

 expense. The drains are laid from 15 to 16 feet apart, and are 

 made to run so that if possible they may follow the course of 

 the mountain streams. The newly drained land has mostly 

 been limed, and top-dressed with bone and stable manure, 

 ■of which there is an abundant supply from the heavy stud of 

 cab horses kept for hiring purposes in connection with the hotel. 

 The new land is cropped in rotation with oats, green-crop, and 

 sown-down oats and ryegrass seed, except where it has been 

 trenched, because the trenched land is better to lie for two years 

 before being cropped. 



In addition to these somewhat more extensive operations of 

 reclaiming land to which we have now been adverting, other 

 farms have been increased by patches of moorland being brought 

 under cultivation, and the method pursued has in every case been 

 identical with either of those to which reference has been made. 

 Notwithstanding the vigour with which for many years they pro- 

 secuted the breaking of new land, tlie farmers now, it has to be 

 said, have somewhat relaxed their energies, and much that was 

 once reclaimed is again lying wild. Various causes have operated 

 to ljrin<4 about this result, and amonf^st these mav be mentioned 

 the comparative success of pastoral farming during recent years, 

 which lias made it more profitable to feed sheep tlian to cultivate 

 the soil ; the dilliculty of securing tield-workers during press of 

 work tliinning turnips and in liarvest-time, tlie cottars having 

 most of them disa])])eared, and the otlier residents being careless of 

 rural labour,; and the great dilliculty experienced, especially in the 



