42 TiREY. AGRICULTURE. 



notions of depopulation and emigration, and with all 

 the ill-founded prejudices which these odious terms 

 scarcely ever fail to produce, that the introduction and 

 extension of this practice have always had to con- 

 tend with a host of obstacles and difficulties, here, as in 

 every instance where it has first been adopted. The 

 progress of agricultural improvement in England, as well 

 in this case as in other endeavours to change the ancient 

 habits, is only the prototype of that which is here but 

 beginning. It is superfluous to discuss the advantages 

 already derived from sheep farming ; the subject is indeed 

 too trite to require notice ; but it is proper to remark, 

 that in some of the islands under consideration it is 

 deservedly less an object of attention than in the mountain 

 farms of the main land or of those islands which lie near 

 its shores. The sheep does not bear sea carriage well, 

 and is therefore a commodity of far less easy trans- 

 port than cattle : fortunately there is not a very large 

 proportion of the Long Island, (the only tract from 

 which the transport of sheep would be difficult,) that 

 would be more advantageously occupied by sheep than 

 it is by cattle. 



Few circumstances in the system of Highland farming 

 are more remarkable to a stranger than the enormous 

 number of horses kept ; a practice, however, which 

 is fast expiring. It is a moderate statement to say, 

 that there are three times more than are necessary ; 

 since there was recently a common farm, even in Sky, 

 possessing forty horses, where the whole work might 

 have been performed with six. Tirey lately contained 

 fifteen hundred, a number probably ten times greater than 

 its real wants, but these have been much reduced by means 

 which however unjustifiable it is unnecessary to detail. Of 

 the causes which have led to this wasteful superfluity, some 

 have been unavoidable ; while others, having been the 

 result of bad practices now disappearing, are themselves 

 vanishing without specific remedies. The want of carriage 



