Book I. 



AGRICULTURE OF THE HEBRIDES. 



1153 



, 7072. ARGYLESHIRE, nearly two millions of acres ; the eleventh part of Scotland, and the thirtieth 

 of Great Britain, and nearly the whole of the Scottish kingdom from A. D. 503 to the subjugation of the 

 Picts in 843. The surface of the country is rough and mountainous : in the northern parts " alps piled on 

 alps hide their heads in the clouds." The climate is moderately mild, very moist in the vales and on the 

 coast, but cold and severe on the elevations. The soil of the vales is generally light ; the minerals are 

 lead, iron, coal, freestone, granite, limestone, slates, &c., but the two first are not worked at present. There 

 are numerous bays, inlets, and lakes, in some of which excellent fish is caught. The county is in no re- 

 spect remarkable in an agricultural point of view : it furnishes immense quantities of cattle and sheep 

 to the graziers and feeders of the south, and there are some oak coppices and artificial plantations. 

 (SmitA's General View, 1810.) 



1. Property, 



In the hands of 156 o\vners. Farms of the smaller size 

 reckoned by acres, the largest by miles. One, supposed to 

 be the largest in Britain, is eighteen or twenty in length by 

 three or four miles in breadth ; several contain from two to 

 six square miles : object, as in Inverness-shire, the breeding of 

 cattle chiefly, and next sheep. 



2. Improvements 



Have been made by most of the proprietors : some plans of 

 farmeries are given bv the reporter. One is circular, and con- 

 sists chiefly of cattle shells ; but the elevation is of that mon- 

 grel Gothic, which is displayed in most of the modern Highland 

 chateaus. The fin share plough (2499.) was invented in this 

 countv by the reporter. 



3. 'Woods and Plantations. 



There are about 30,000 acres of coppice, chiefly oak, birch, 

 and hazel, which being now valuable for the bark, and the poles 

 to be used as spokes for wheels, is beginning to be enclosed 



from the sheep by stone walls. The Duke of Argyle Ls the 

 chief planter, and his larch plantations are of ^eat extent, 

 and contain an immense quantity of valuable timber. The 

 oldest and largest of the trees at Inverary are supposed to 

 have been planted by the Marquess of Argyle betwixt the years 

 1650 and 1660. Those of the next largest size and age were 

 raised from the seed by Archibald Duke of Argyle (called a 

 tree-monger, by Walpole) in 174C or 1747. These consist 

 chiefly of larches. New England pines, spruce and silver firs. 



4. Live Stock. 



Cattle the west Highland breed ; the best in the districts of 

 Argyle, Lorn, Hay, Colonsa, and Mull. 

 S"A*p, till lately, much neglected. 

 Horses, a hardy native breed larger than the pony. 



5. Political Economy. 



Roads as in Inverness-shire. A canal from tlie coal works 

 in Campbelton to the sea : few manufactures. An agricultu- 

 ral society at Kintyre. 



7073. The HEBRIDES, including Buteshire, are nearly 200 islands, containing 2,037,760 acres of rocky, 

 hilly, and, in some islands, mountainous country, with a severe, unsteady, moist climate, and a soil gener- 

 ally light. Almost all the minerals ai'e found with which the continental j)art of Scotland is furnished. 

 Slate, lime, granite, marble, and freestone, are in great abundance, and coal has been found in various 

 places, though it has not been successfully worked. Steatite, or soapstone, from which porcelain is manu- 

 factured j fuller's earth, and a great variety of other economical minerals, besides rare and curious spe- 

 cies, are found in different islands. (Headrick's Survey, 1796. Macdonaid's General View, 1811.) 



1. Property 



In the hands of forty -nine proprietors ; highest rental 18,000/. 

 and acres 312,500. A great many tacksmen. Those of Hay 

 are said to " combine with the spirit and elegant hospitality 

 indigenous in this country, the accuracy in dealing, 

 the punctuality in paying, and all the useful qualifi- 

 cations of first-rate low country farmers. It must not 

 be forgotten, in mentioning the order of tacksmen, 

 that they are exceedingly useful, and often necessary, 

 for maintaining good order and government in the 

 country. Without tlieir aid, the eflbrts of the clergy 

 and officers of justice would be painful and unavail- 

 ing ; and therefore they ought not to be rashly ba- 

 nished, were they to' be viewed in no other light than 

 merely as subsidiary to the police and moral admi- 

 nistration of the Isles. 



2. Buildings. 

 Farm-houses throughout the Hebrides are either 



houses of tacksmen, of tenants, or subtenants. 

 Tacksmen's houses, though still far beliind those of 

 considerable farmers in the principal coimties of 

 England and the lowlands of Scotland, are, how- 

 ever, in general, beginning to be tolerably decent and 

 comfortable : and on all the large estates they have 

 been very much improved within ,the last twenty- 

 live years. Most of them are now built of stone 

 and lime, and roofed with blue slates, two stories 

 high, and furnished with kitchens and other accommoda- 

 tions. In many instances, indeed, the office-houses are 

 still in a deplorable state, but even these are rapidly im- 

 proving; and should this order of farmers exist for half a 

 century longer, their houses will, probably, be as commodious, 

 and their office-houses as judiciously planned, as those of the 

 same description of men in any part of Great Britain. 



The houses of the occupvmg tenants are, generally speaking, 

 wretched hovels, and those of the subtenants, nasty and mise- 

 rable beyond description. I'ennant describes them as habita- 

 tions made of loose stones, without chimneys or doors, except- 

 ing the faggot opposed to the wind at one or other of the aper- 

 tures pemiitting the smoke to escape in order to nrevent the 

 pains of suffocation. Furniture corresponds : a i>ot-hook hangs 

 ftom the middle of the roof, with a pot hanging over a grateless 

 fire, filled with fare that may rather be called a permission to 

 exist than a support of vigorous life : the inmates, as may be 

 supposed, lean, withered, diisky, and smoke-dried. 



It cannot be denied, that this picture is, in some degree, 

 realized in a few of the Hebrides, even at the present day. 



The cottages in the Hebrides are almost universally so mise- 

 rable, both in plan and execution, that they deserve mention 

 only as proofs, that a sensible and sagacious race of men may, by 

 a combination of unfavorable circumstances, not only be gradu- 

 ally brought to endurepri vations, which, to their equals in other 

 countries, would seem intolerable, but also, in the course of 

 time, they mav lose the power, and even the will of surmount- 

 ing them, three-fourths of the 40,000 cottagers of these 

 Isles live in hovels which would disgrace any Indian tribe ; 

 and many of them are found on islands of the first rank in 

 point of population and extent. At least, 7000 of the natives 

 of Lewis (for instance) know nothing of a chimney, table, 

 glass window, house flooring, or even hearth stone, by their 

 own experience at home ; and what we call their furniture is, 

 as may be imagined, wretched and scanty beyond description, 

 correspondmg with their shabby exterior. 



In the woods of the Park at Bute were formerly fine speci- 

 mens of Swiss cottages and other fancy, wooden buildmgs. 

 (.fig. 820.) 



3. Occupation. 



In estimating the size of Hebridean farms, the common plan 

 is to attend to three leading objects ; first, the number orlive 



stock which the farms in question can maintain ; secondly, the 

 number of bolts of grain which can be sown, or of ploughs re- 

 quisite for their tillage ; and, thirdly, the quantity of kelp that 

 can be made upon them. 



820 



' Grazing farms, whether for sheep or cattle, must gradually be 

 enlarged; and kelp, or merely agricultural farms, must as 

 naturally become limited and confined in jwint of extent. 

 The hay on mam of the grass-farms, and sometimes the com 

 on arable grounds,; is obliged to be dried by hanging on poles, 

 trees, or rods, (Ji^'. 82 1.) as in Sweden. 



821 



4. Implements. 



Some are nearly peculiar to the Hebrides, as the caschrom 

 or crooked spade {.fig. 822.), which, in two parishes in the 

 Isle of Lewis, entirely supersedes the use of ploughs in the 

 raisuig ot com and potatoes. The great advantage of this in- 

 stmment is, that it enables the oj)erator to work in mosses or 

 bogs, where no horses can walk, ^and in stony ground inacces- 

 sible to the plough. Manv districts of Harris and of Skye 

 would be unsusceptible of tillage without it. Its sui)eriority to 

 the common trenching spade, or to any tool which penetrdtes 

 the ground i)en)endicularly, is very great, resulUng both from 

 the ease with which the oj>erator wields it, and the length of 

 the horizontal clod which its powerful lever enables him to 

 turn over. 



The risUe, or sickle plough, a sort of paring plough, is 

 used for cutting the strong sward of old land, or tlie tough 

 roots of plants, which would otherwise greatly impede the 

 passage or the plough. 







