TIREY. AGRICULTURE. 35 



imperfection and expense of such a system of cultivation, 

 abstractedly considered : but the question here, as in many 

 other cases, is not about that which is best, but that which 

 is most suitable to the present state of the country. The 

 enlargement of farms and the conversion of tenants into 

 labourers, or, what will necessarily be the other alternative, 

 the removal of the present population and the introduc- 

 tion of a more able and powerful class of tenantry, must 

 precede the introduction of a cheaper husbandry with 

 respect to this root, namely, the drilling and horse-hoeing 

 system. He who has but an acre to cultivate, must cul- 

 tivate it with his own hands ; he who has no plough, 

 must use a spade. The caschrom here mentioned is much 

 used in Sky and in the Long Isle, and is an instrument of 

 considerable efficacy and power : it is rather a plough than 

 a spade, and will perform twice as much work as the latter 

 with the same labour. It is a singular circumstance, that 

 an instrument so simple and so nearly a-kin to the plough, 

 and at the same time of apparently great antiquity, should 

 be limited to this country. No trace of it is to be seen 

 among those drawings, whether Egyptian or Hindoo, 

 which represent the plough in its most simple and original 

 state. It would seem to have been the invention of man 

 where the co-operation of animals in his agricultural la- 

 bours was unknown. Its advantage in this country over 

 the plough arises from its being applicable to the cultiva- 

 tion of rocky ground where a plough cannot be used, or 

 to that of boggy and soft land where a horse cannot walk. 

 Many districts, now in a high state of cultivation, could 

 not otherwise be tilled ; and as long as the present system 

 continues, the caschrom* will maintain its ground. 



As the cultivation of grasses forms no part of the 

 ancient system, the hay of the islands is the produce of 

 natural meadows, and, in many cases, of waste scraps of 

 land, whence it is cut and saved at a great expense of 



* PI. 30, Fig. 4, 



