188 A HUNDRED YEARS 



the wise men of the community considered they had 

 sufficiently manured that particular plot. Then the 

 cows were made to pass their nights on another achadh 

 or enclosure. In the following spring these manured 

 achaidhnan (fields) were very laboriously turned over 

 by the men with the caschrom, and a more or less good 

 crop of the small and hardy aboriginal black oats was 

 reaped, and later on ground into meal by the Bra or 

 quern. Sometimes they would take a second or even a 

 third crop of oats out of the achadh, or vary the crop, 

 especially if the soil were hard and stony, with one of 

 grey field peas, which, when ground and mixed with 

 barley meal, made most nourishing bread in the form of 

 scones baked on a girdle over a peat fire. Many a time 

 have I eaten them as a boy. 



When the achadh was completely exhausted, the dyke 

 was allowed to tumble down, and the field to go wild 

 again under weeds (the sowing of grass seeds was quite 

 unknown then) till it had time to recover itself, in a kind 

 of way. Then, the dyke having been repaired, the same 

 process of manuring the ground with the cattle was gone 

 through over again ! Most people would imagine that 

 the time allowed for the cattle to lie on these enclosures 

 for the purpose of enriching them would be about the 

 same, whether early or late in the season, but the crofter 

 knew better what was necessary from years of experience. 

 The old men used to tell me, when I was a boy, that 

 twenty cows on an enclosure in June when the grass 

 was young and in full force did as much enriching in a 

 week as they would do in a fortnight in August or 

 September, when the hill grasses or bents were going 



