IONA. AGRICULTURE. 7 



into distinct crofts, in the manner now becoming generally 

 prevalent. This division is but recent, lona, like most 

 of the farms of the Western Islands, having been, till 

 lately, held in run-rig, as it is called, and each farm 

 annually divided by lot. No plan could well have been 

 devised more effectual in preventing the good treatment, 

 as well as the improvement of the soil; every man's 

 interest being thus set in decided opposition to that of the 

 collective farm, and of the landholder. But the practice is 

 fast expiring, as well as the whole system of tacks and sub- 

 tenantry, with which it was connected. An amelioration 

 in the mode of culture will, to a certain extent, naturally 

 follow : but the consequent relief to the population of these 

 islands can only be temporary. The lapse of time will 

 again, as it is speedily doing, generate a population as 

 redundant as it was under a worse cultivation, and again 

 produce the same- poverty and misery; if, indeed, the 

 state of these small tenants can be considered as any 

 thing at present but a perpetual contest with poverty. 

 A far different system must be adopted, before any per- 

 manent amelioration in the condition of the people can 

 be effected. 



The number of persons above mentioned corresponds to 

 about ninety families ; five and a fraction constituting the 

 average of a Highland family*. Thus three pounds, or thir- 

 teen shillings per individual, becomes the annual rent of a 

 tenement of land, the house having no value : and this, 

 with some fluctuation in different places, will be found to 

 represent pretty nearly the average rent of an individual 

 throughout these islands. But I shall hereafter give a 

 more general account of these subjects, foreseeing that 

 partial details would otherwise be inevitable, and that 

 they would scarcely be intelligible to those to whom the 



* It is, perhaps, superfluous to say, that celibacy is nearly unknown 

 in these islands. 



