NOBLESSE OBLIGE 61 



ground is used for arable farming, and a sheep 

 stock is kept on the higher ground. The 

 annual sale from the produce of stock and 

 crops give about ^250 at normal prices, while 

 on the same area under deer (4 stags and 2 

 hinds) the food value is estimated at only ^20. 

 Following this evidence, given in 19 16, we 

 get some remarkable testimony from Mr. R. 

 MacDiarmid, Corries, Loch Awe, Argyllshire, 

 tendered before the Royal Commission in 

 January 1920. Mr. MacDiarmid wrote, in a 

 letter presented by the chairman of the 

 National Farmers' Union of Scotland : " A 

 very large area of land within the surrounding 

 district in which I live is taken up with deer 

 forests. It includes the Blackmount Deer 

 Forest, extending to at least 50,000 acres. 

 Confining my remarks to land which has been 

 cleared of sheep within the last twenty-five years, 

 I find that in one parish alone 8 farms lying 

 adjacent have been cleared of sheep. These 

 8 farms collectively carried a mixed black- 

 faced stock of 20,000 sheep. Some years 

 ago a portion of one farm was restocked 

 with 2000 sheep, while in 191 7 the District 

 Agricultural Committee insisted on the shoot- 

 ing tenant restocking with 1000 sheep a 

 farm he had two years previously cleared, so 

 that the number of sheep displaced by deer 

 is now reduced to 18,000. The bulk of all 

 this land is sound sheep-grazing, does not 



