52 ON THE AGRICULTURE OF BUTE AND ARRAN. 



from OS. Gd.to 4s. a-day, also without food. The wages of these same 

 workers in the turnip-thinning and potato-planting season are from 

 Is. ?>d. to Is. Gd. a-day. Men are not generally employed at this 

 work, and the wives and families of the cottars are those chiefly 

 engaged in it. Squads of Irishmen are sometimes engaged in 

 Ardrossan and Ayr to come overto Arran and assist in press of work. 

 Although the cottar system is rapidly dying out in tlie island, on 

 every farm of any size there are still one, two, three, and, in some 

 few cases, more cottars' houses, and the inmates find employ- 

 ment on the farms and in herring fishing. Many of them keep a 

 pig, and each has a drill or two of potatoes, which are planted by 

 the farmer, the cottar supplying the manure, which is principally 

 sea-weed. There are no feeing markets in the island, but the 

 children of the cottars are often engaged privately by the farmers 

 at the rates of wages per half-year which may rule in Ayr market 

 at the time. 



Shepherds in most cases are paid salaries of about £40 per 

 annum, with a free house, an allowance for coals or a supply of 

 peats carted, grazing for one or two cows, and a few potatoes 

 planted. Married ploughmen receive 16s. a-week, a free house, 

 an allowance of Id. worth of milk per day or grazing for a cow, 

 and 2 tons of coals per annum. 



The w^ages of female servants boarded in the house have been 

 doubled within the past twenty-five years, and those of male 

 servants are now about one-half more than they were at the com- 

 mencement of that period. 



Conclusion. 



There are in Arran five villages of a greater or less size, viz. — 

 Lamlash, Brodick, Whiting Ba}^ Lochranza, and Corrie. Brodick 

 is the most modern-looking of the five, but Lamlash is con- 

 sidered the most important. A branch of one of the Scotch 

 banks is open here daily all the year round, and the village is 

 also the station of a coastguard. A branch bank is opened twice 

 a-week at Brodick, and three times a-w^eek during summer. There 

 are no industries in the island other than farming, and the majority 

 of the inhabitants derive no inconsiderable part of their revenue 

 from the rents they receive for their houses from summer visitors. 

 They are a quiet inofiensive race of people, and many of them 

 live to very old ages. Churches and schools are plentiful through- 

 out the island, and altogether the people have few complaints to 

 make. 



