16 A HUNDEED YEARS IN THE HIGHLANDS 



heart of the Applecross deer forest. This shows the 

 difficulty of getting nails in those days ! 



It was long after this that some English tourists, finding 

 the lovely Baile Mor Glen peculiarly rich in wild -flowers, 

 proposed to my ancestor that it should be named 

 Flowerdale ! I am thankful to say I have never once 

 in the course of my whole long life heard the house 

 called otherwise in Gaelic than the Tigh Dige and the 

 place am Baile Mor (the Great Town or Home). The 

 cause of the flowers being so plentiful in the good old 

 times was that neither my grandfather nor his forbears 

 would ever hear of a sheep coming near the place, except 

 on a rope to the slaughter-house. The stock consisted 

 of sixty Highland milk cows and their sixty calves, 

 besides all their followers of different ages. These were 

 continually shifted from place to place, and this gave 

 the plants and bulbs a chance of growing. I never saw 

 the black cattle on the Baile Mor home farm, but my 

 mother, who was married some years before I was born, 

 saw the whole system in full swing, and has often told 

 me all about it. 



