ON THE AGRICULTURE OF ROSS AND CROMARTY. 67 



ON THE AGRICULTUEE OF THE COUNTIES OF EOSS AXD 



CROMARTY. 



By James Macdonald, Special Reporter for the Scotsman, Aberdeen. 



[Premium — TJiirty SovereigTis.] 



General and Introchcctory . 



The counties of Eoss and Cromarty are so tliorougMy dove- 

 tailed into each other geographically, and so intimately connected 

 politically, that they are usually spoken of as one county, and in 

 this treatise we propose to abide as closely as practicable to this 

 convenient rule. Together the two form the third largest county 

 in Scotland, and extend in one grand whole from the German Ocean 

 to the Atlantic ; while separately both are cut up, unconnected, 

 and incomplete. 



These combined counties are bounded by the German Ocean 

 on the east, by the Atlantic Ocean on the west, by Suther- 

 landshire on the north and north-east, and on the south by 

 Inverness-shire. The island of Lewis, which stands away out 

 about 30 miles from the mainland, forming a huge natural 

 breakwater to check the rolling waves of the Atlantic, and a 

 few smaller islands, also on the west coast, belong to Eoss- 

 shire. The most northern point of the mainland, at the 

 mouth of the rivulet Fin (meaning boundary), is in north latitude 

 58° 7' 20'' ; the most southerly, near Loch Luing, in 57° T 40'' ; the 

 most easterly point, Tarbetness, lies in west longitude 3° 45' ; 

 and the most westerly, in the north of Applecross Sound, in 5° 46. 

 Tlie greatest distance in a straight line from north to south is 

 close on 70 miles, and from east to west about 67 miles. From 

 north-east to south-west Eoss-shire extends 84 miles. According 

 to the census of 1871, the area of the two counties is about 3151 

 square miles, or 2,016,375 imperial acres. Cromarty claims 

 19,247 acres, and Lewis 417,416. 



In 1871 the population of Eoss-shire was 77,503, and the num- 

 ber of inhabited liouses 15,028. In Cromarty the population was 

 3362, and inhabited houses 685 ; together, population 80,955, in- 

 habited houses 15,713. The Parliamentary Eeturn of owners of 

 lands and heritages in Scotland, drawn up in 1872-3, shows that 

 in Eo.ss-shire there are 324 proprietors of lands of one acre and 

 u})\vards in extent, whose total acreage is 1,971,309, and total an- 

 nual value L.247,833, 17s. ; and that there are 1719 owners of 

 land of less than one acre in extent, their total extent beiiv^' 373 

 acres, and total annual value, L.2 1,508, 3s. The total number 

 of landowners is thus 2043 ; their total acreage 1,!>71,<')82 acres, 

 and their total annual value, L.269,342. In Cromarty, accord- 

 ing to the same authority, there are in all 231 landowners; 

 217 haviuLT each less than one acre. The total annual value of 



