34 TIREY. AGRICULTURE. 



admits. It is true that there are circumstances which 

 seem at present to be a bar to any innovations, even 

 though fortified with these arguments ; and which Time 

 himself, the great innovator, cannot remove till many 

 preparatory inroads on the present system shall have been 

 effected. But the detail of these would lead into econo- 

 mical discussions of wide extent, too wide at least for 

 the brief sketch which I proposed to give. 



The general mode of cultivating potatoes is in lazy- 

 beds, as they are called, the intermediate earth being often 

 removed, even to a great extent, on thin rocky soils or 

 on peat mosses, and large drains being thus left between 

 them. These beds are highly manured, generally with 

 sea-weed, since the greater number of farms, indeed nearly 

 the whoje population of the islands, lies near the sea. 

 The sets are dibbled in, and are in general carefully 

 weeded ; the care bestowed on this justly favoured crop 

 forming a strong contrast to the prevailing slovenliness of 

 the insular agriculture. Receiving this article when its 

 treatment was well understood, the Highlanders neces- 

 sarily took with it the rules for its cultivation, and no 

 breach of ancient habits was required. 



The beds which I have described are made up either 

 by the spade or the more powerful instrument the 

 caschrom, often on the bare rock, and they present a 

 singular spectacle to the lowland or English traveller 

 who for the first time witnesses this mode of culture. He 

 will naturally revolt at what he considers misdirected 

 industry and extravagant expense, not reflecting that the 

 divided nature of the tenures and the superfluity of the 

 population cause this waste of toil, and that such a 

 practice is the necessary consequence of the present 

 state of the country. An advantage at first not contem- 

 plated is also the result of this system, namely, the acqui- 

 sition of much arable land from the waste ; since it is by 

 the potatoe culture that the peat mosses are brought into 

 a state of aration. There can be no question respecting the 



