A HUNDRED YEARS IN THE HIGHLANDS 185 



I was young that when the people were educated (and 

 not till then) the land would be properly cultivated, and 

 that then every croft would become perfect like a garden. 

 But, alas ! it has turned out the very contrary. The 

 modern crofter has nearly given up the use of all hand 

 implements of culture, and trusts to hiring a pair of 

 more or less starved ponies and often a very inefficient 

 plough and harrows. They get the ground scratched 

 over in some kind of way, but much of it only to a depth 

 of a very few inches, all head rigs and difficult stony 

 bits being left untouched. As there is great difficulty 

 in getting horses and ploughs, the crops are almost always 

 so late in being sown that the equinoctial gales are upon 

 them before they ripen ; this means disaster and a ruinous 

 harvest nearly every year, owing to the floods and 

 storms. 



I maintain that education has done nothing for agricul- 

 ture among the crofters on the west coast as far as I can 

 see. Though the people are certainly improving their 

 dwellings, I seldom, if ever, see them use the pick, the 

 spade, and the crowbar, which are so essential for trench- 

 ing and draining and getting rid of boulders. In fact, 

 many of the crofts are going back, instead of being 

 improved and turned into gardens, as they might be 

 with fixity of tenure and fair rents to encourage their 

 owners. In the old caschrom days every inch of the 

 ground was cultivated even among boulders, where the 

 best soil is often to be found and which no plough can 

 go near. 



And how the women used to work among the potatoes, 

 weeding them by hand so carefully, putting all the 



