workmen's dwellings and tenure of holdings. 35 



then be given fall crofter rights, with fixity of tenure, or with an 

 option of occupying ownership, if he should so desire. 



Offices. 



With regard to buildings other than dwelling-houses — that is 

 barn, byre, etc., — the forest worker should, after a period of 

 satisfactory service, have an advance of not more than a 

 third to a half of the cost of the building material for the same : 

 this to be paid off on the same lines as the other capital and 

 interest charges for the house. The object of not giving the forest 

 worker the whole of his expenses for his farm buildings is to 

 oblige him to retain an interest in tlie holding, and by such 

 means to induce him to settle down on the land. 



Type of the Croft and Buildings. 



The area of the croft should at least be sufficient to maintain 

 one or two cows, but not large enough to free the crofter from 

 dependence on work in the woods, the object being to create a 

 small holder rather than a small farmer. The type of croft would 

 be what is known in the Highlands as a ;C2>^;£s croft, some 

 five to twelve acres in extent, with outrun or common grazing. 

 In addition to the blocks of crofts created on arable land, there 

 would be a few isolated crofts for outworkers on improvable land 

 in deer forests and sheep farms ; these would, as a rule, — 

 especially in the steeper glens, on account of the small amount 

 of improvable land to be found there — be more of the nature of 

 potato plots than crofts; rent and the charge for the dwelling- 

 house would be reduced accordingly. ^ 



In the first instance, at all events, it is advisable that all 

 the crofts should not be of the same size ; thirty per cent, of 

 them should be large enough to maintain a horse as well as 

 a couple of cows. The system of joint working of crofts is 

 well understood in the Highlands, especially in those townships 



^ The amount of arable, old arable and improvable land in the average 

 Highland glen is not extensive, and if it is desired to give a large percentage 

 of the forest workers "the keep of a cow," the most rigid economy in land 

 must be observed from the first. It must be remembered that on the whole 

 deer forest area of Scotland only 2482 acres of old arable were scheduled 

 by the Highlands and Islands Commissioners as suitable for cultivation by 

 crofters and small farmers ; and that even if 30 per cent, of increase, since the 

 time of the report, is allowed for the extension of deer forest ground, the 

 arable land is wholly inadequate for the workers that a Forest Authority 

 might wish to settle on the land. 



