THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



147 



culty is experienced is to invest capital, so as to make it 

 pay adequate interest. In almost every glen and hillside 

 wonders could be eflfected, in magnitude outrivalling tbe 

 Babylonian terraces of oriental history; but when we 

 turn to the pecuuiai-y side of the stoi^, it is then " the 

 toes begin to feel where the shoe pinches." 



But with all the adverse circumstances experienced in 

 the Highlands, much capital may nevertheless be profita- 

 bly invested in improving the pasturage of the deep glens 

 and rugged hillsides, where the Kyloe gathers bis food. 

 The improvements, it will be seen, are of a fourfold charac- 

 ter, and the successful execiition of the general work is to 

 make the different divisions into which it subdivides 

 itself co-operate together for the common cause, so that 

 no labour shall be lost, orcapital fruitlessly expended, as is 

 often the case, something having to be done twice and 

 thrice before a satisfactoi-y finish is efiected, and a retui'n 

 for capital reaUsed. 



A large area of the Highlands requires draining, and is at 

 a level sufficiently low to pay for deep thorough drainage. 

 Nothing short of this will repay the outlay of capital, 

 while effectual drainage, with the other improvements, 

 will return remunerating interest on the whole investment. 

 Of all the lands we have examined between the Land's End 

 and John o'Groat's, those of the Highlands, especially on 

 the west coast, are the most thankless for half-done works 

 of this kind, there being almost invariably a large supply 

 of bottom water on a sloping surface, besides heavy falls 

 of rain and snow. In short, the work must either be 

 thoroughly done or let alone, and the former is the more 

 advisable, because more profitable of the two. 



In many cases that have come under our notice, the 

 quantity of bottom or spring water which could easily be 

 drained from one district, might with equal ease be used 

 for the inigation and warping of, another on a lower 

 level. By such means "two dogs would be hit with one 

 bone," and much land that is now covered with poor heath 

 converted into grass, yielding a sweet and nourishing bite 

 to both cattle and sheep. Some of these cases are in- 

 teresting from an engineering point of view, as the water 

 drained from one hill side had, by 300 yards or so of piping, 

 to be carried under a small rivulet, for the irrigation of the 

 dry heath land on the opposite hill-side. Let no poverty- 

 stricken laird or penurious chief be startled at such a pro- 

 position, for we ourselves were somewhat sui-prised at the 

 little money its practical solution would have required, 

 and the quantity of water which could thus have been 

 brought to bear upon the in'igation and warping of a large 

 area of land only yielding heath. In other cases a vei-y 

 small quantity of piping would send the small rUls, that 

 now bubble uselessly in the bottom of the valley, dashing 

 from one level to another over rocks, pebbles, &c., playing 

 upon the di'y comparatively ban'en heaths on either side. 

 In short, a draining engineer would find no difficulty in 

 expending his ingenuity upon irrigation and wai-ping 

 works of this kind amongst old Caledonia's heath-clad 

 hUls and mountain streams equally to the advantage of 

 the landlord and the tenant. 



Almost in eveij case where drainage and irrigation can 

 be profitably carried out, shelter is also required. Indeed 

 so imperatively necessai-y is this, that it may not inaptly 

 be said that upon shelter the profits of the whole improve- 

 ments depend, for exposed to the inclemency of the wea- 

 ther, in spring and autumn more especially, herds and 

 flocks would suffer so much as to render interest on capital 

 a very problematical affair, while the pasture itself would 



also be checked in gi'owth and reduced in quality. But 

 with proper shelter, the inclemency of those two periods, 

 the first of spring and last of autumn, now so starvingly 

 ruinous to cattle, would be greatly modified, even in the 

 most exposed places. 



Evelyn, in his " Sylva," proposes plantingthe Sussex and 

 Hampshire Do\vns to aflbrd shelter to stock ; and no doubt 

 his proposition could, at the present day, be carried out 

 with advantage. Likewise, belts of wood could be planted 

 in many parts of the Highlands, to afford shelter to cattle ; 

 but in numerous cases it is otherwise, the exposure and 

 severity of the weather being such that trees could not 

 stand the storms of the north, were it possible for them to 

 be grown. In such places shelter must mean anything 

 that will carry the blast over the back of a Highland ox 

 or black-faced sheep: so that in practice it just means 

 anything, from a large stone to a forest, every case being 

 subject to its own cii'cumstances. 



That drainage, irrigation, and warping, where practi- 

 cable, with shelter, would naturally improve the pasture, is 

 one of those questions that may be taken for granted. Set 

 up a stone anywhere, and the heath is a very barren one 

 if it does not improve the pasture, for with few exceptions 

 grass will be found ultimately to make its appearance 

 around the edge of the stone where it rests upon the 

 ground, while in some cases the green sward will extend 

 outwards a foot and more around it. The same result is 

 produced around any kind of bush that is grown, while 

 some bushy plants, as furze, afford at the same time ex- 

 cellent food for sheep, AVe have raised fine hedges or 

 belts of furze by sowing the seed on two plough-furrows 

 drawn some twenty feet asunder across a very poor heath, 

 worthless before, but affording fine shelter and no little 

 food to sheep, after the furze was up a few feet in height. 

 In two examples of this kind, had water been brought to 

 bear upon the irrigation of the intervening spaces, tliei-e 

 cannot be a doubt but the result would have been still 

 more favourable from the shelter the furze afforded. To 

 make the shelter and water act together so as to produce 

 the greatest effect, furze hedges or sheltering works of 

 any other kind must correspond with the works for irri- 

 gation ; so that practical details of this kind involve no 

 little ingenuity in carrying them out successfully at a small 

 outlay of capital. 



Having made provision for the Kyloe during the sum- 

 mer season, we now come to examine his present treat- 

 ment during the long stormy winters of the north, when 

 stock must be withdrawn from the hills to strawyards and 

 homesteads, generally on arable farms, at a lower level. 

 This is necessary before we can start the first foot in the 

 march of impi-ovement. 



The change of diet and confinement to which the High, 

 land ox is subjected in our strawyards during the winter 

 season is far from conducive to his physical development 

 and general well-being. The utmost that can be said in 

 its favoiu- is that it is the least of two evils in the gene- 

 rality of cases — better than exposed hill grounds deficient 

 of roughness left dui-ing summer, but worse than many a 

 sheltered glen with plenty of Highland fare at Christmas. 

 The fact is notorious, reflecting in no very favourable 

 terms the progress which aet has made in the lowlands 

 relative to the wintering of stock. Where the Kyloe is left 

 to graze wi(h red-deer in his native glens during the in- 

 clemency of winter, we then find him before midsummer 

 in the following season a long way ahead of his compan- 

 ions that had been wintered in the lowlands and retiu'ned 



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