JO TIREV. AGRICULTURE. 



labour and time ; while it is also contaminated with rushes 

 and other aquatic plants, the usual inhabitants of such 

 situations. Scarcely any attention, except some feeble 

 attempts towards draining, is bestowed on the meadows ; 

 which are left as they were found, to the care of Nature. 

 Hence their produce is deficient both in quantity and 

 value, while the hay being rarely secured sooner than 

 the corn is frequently damaged, and even the total loss of 

 the crop, in consequence of its lateness is not uncommon. 

 The cultivation of flax is carried on, but to an incon- 

 siderable extent ; and, as may easily be imagined, not in 

 the best manner. That of hemp is still more limited ; 

 indeed it can scarcely be said to exist, since it is only 

 occasionally seen in small patches ; the produce being con- 

 fined to the very limited consumption of the country, 

 in the shape of twine or fishing lines. Whether these two 

 substances may be considered advantageous or otherwise 

 when viewed abstractedly in an agricultural light, the 

 question with respect to these islands is of a different 

 nature. Where the operations of agriculture are carried 

 on, in the manner already described, by a superfluous 

 number of hands, and where much time will consequently 

 at certain portions of the year be unemployed, it must be 

 desirable to invent new modes of occupation, until the 

 division of labour, the sure concomitant of improvement, 

 shall have taken place. The manufacture of these sub- 

 stances for the current wants of the community requires 

 little or no capital; and the produce can always com- 

 mand a ready market; thus holding out employment to 

 those who are inclined to profit by it, and operating 

 as a stimulus to a people whose industiy is not 

 dead, but, for want of objects, dormant. The ultimate 

 effects may in other respects be even more advantageous, 

 though less immediately obvious ; namely, a taste for 

 occupations different from those of agriculture, which 

 notoriously engross too large a proportion of the Highland 

 population, and a demonstration that the means of living 



