CHAPTER XIII 

 AGEICULTURE 



People have an idea that agriculture was very far 

 behind in the old days of the runrig system. That this 

 system was as bad a one as could be there is no denying. 

 There was no incentive to improve your rig or patch, for 

 what you had this year one of your neighbours probably 

 had next year. There were continual quarrels over the 

 distribution of the allotments, and then the whole ground 

 was remeasured with, as my uncle described it, " miles 

 of string," and lots were cast as to who were to get the 

 various bits of ground. I may mention that the trustees 

 left one big township — namely, Inverasdale — under the 

 old system, and before three years had run the crofters 

 unanimously begged to get separate crofts like the rest. 

 I know a chauffeur from a township in Torridon where 

 the runrig system still prevails, and he told me his 

 ground was in thirty-six different patches, none of them 

 contiguous. 



In spite of all this, and though the only implements 

 of husbandry were the caschrom and croman (the old 

 prehistoric Norwegian hand plough and a kind of home- 

 made Highland hoe), I, who am more or less of a farmer 

 myself, am prepared to prove that far more crop was 

 raised out of the soil then than there is now. I re- 

 member having it constantly dinned into my ears when 



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