104 GREAT BRITAIN AND IREI,AND - MISCEI.I,ANEOUS 



§ I. The " CROFTING COUNTIES. " 



The Crofter's Holdings Act of 1886 of applied to the seven counties (i) 

 of Argyll, Inverness, Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland, Caithness, Orkney and 

 vShetland, which among them embrace almost the whole of the western and 

 northern Highlands, and the whole of the islands Ijdngtothe west and north 

 of Scotland. These counties extend altogether to an area of 14,000 square 

 miles, or nearly half the whole area of Scotland. They include, however, only 

 15 per cent, of the " cultivated land," i. e. the land under crops and grass ; 

 the proportion of their area used for this purpose being 8 per cent, as com- 

 pared with 41 per cent, in the rest of Scotland. The rent returned as paid 

 for agricultural holdings in these counties amounted in 1906 (when a special 

 return (2) on this subject was made) to £589,000, which is 11 per cent, of 

 the whole amount returned for Scotland, and is only a trifle more than 

 the amount retiirned for the single county of Aberdeen. The population 

 in 1911 was 335,000 or 7 per cent, of the population of Scotland. It reach- 

 ed its maximum in 1851, when it was 395,000, or nearly 14 per cent, of 

 the population of the whole country ; since then every decade has shown 

 a decrease. 



The actual extent of land under crops and grass in these seven count- 

 ies (excluding holdings of one acre or less) in 1912 was 722,000 acres. This 

 was divided among 29,650 holdings, the average size of holding being thus 

 24 acres, as compared with 85 acres for the rest of Scotland and 62 acres 

 for the country as a whole. The proportion of holdings not exceeding 

 50 acres, which in the rest of Scotland is about one-half, is in these counties 

 nine- tenths. 



In these statements no account is taken of the mountain and heath 

 land used for grazing, which occupies a very large proportion of the area 

 not only of these counties but of the whole country. The total area of 

 land used in this way is about 8,900,000 acres, or 46 per cent, of the whole 

 area of Scotland. In this matter the difference between the crofting count- 

 ies and several of the other counties of Scotland is not ver3>- marked. There is, 

 however, a striking difference in the nature of the occupancy of these rough 

 grazings in the two districts into which Scotland is considered as divided. 

 In the remaining counties of Scotland such land is held mainly b_v large 

 sheep farmers who occupy thousands of acres. Large sheep farms are com- 

 mon also in the crofting counties, but a considerable proportion of the rough 

 grazings are — except in Orkney and Caithness — 'Used in common by the 

 tenants of groups of small arable holdings, these groups forming "townships." 



(i) It actually applied to such parishes within these counties as should be declared to be 

 "crofting parishes", but only ii out of the whole number of 162 parishes were exclude 1 from 

 its operation. 



2) The return is entitled "Occupiers of Farms (.Scotland)" and was presented to the House 

 of Commons on 25th. April, 1907. 



