MULL. AGRICULTURE. 541 



in addition to the first cost, are sufficient evidences of 

 the demand for this raw material, and of its value. In 

 the present circumstances, Mull still exports these woods 

 to the 'neighbouring isles; and while every thing con- 

 nected with rural economy is gradually though slowly 

 improving throughout this country, it is scarcely to 

 be doubted that it will one day recover in this re- 

 spect a portion at least of its former fame. On the 

 eastern side of the island, in sheltered situations, the 

 ash grows with great vigour and beauty ; and to him 

 who has for months traversed naked and dreary heaths, 

 varied only by rocks and torrents, and experienced the 

 feeling of desolation and solitude which a country without 

 wood never fails to produce, the trees which surround 

 the house of Scallasdale present a freshness, a luxuriancy, 

 and an aspect of summer, reminding him of that which 

 the more distant traveller must experience when some 

 verdant spot meets him in the passage of the desert. 

 The ash is indeed the tree of most value among those 

 congenial to this climate ; yet it has been neglected 

 even in the recent improvements, where we might have 

 expected to find it one of the first objects of attention. 

 Although the soil which lies on the granite and gneiss 

 in the Ross of Mull is, as I have already remarked, 

 less rich and less deep than that of the trap districts, 

 yet it is in a given extent more productive of corn. 

 But this fertility arises from adventitious causes; from 

 the more perfect exposure to the sun which this com- 

 paratively flat tract presents, and its exemption from 

 the early or late shadows of the mountains which in- 

 tercept the light in the tracts that lie in their vicinity. 

 The gravelly nature and consequent porosity of this 

 soil is also better suited to the excessive moisture of 

 the climate, than the constitution of the trap soils; in 

 which the excess of retentive power, while it causes 

 these lands to be clothed with perpetual verdure, is 

 unfavourable to the due growth and ripening of corn. 



