( 5 ) 



that even the farms which were then let to *' sundry- 

 tenants" were so let to a comparatively small number, 

 who had of course proportionately larger shares, and 

 these shares, if reckoned at the present value, would 

 represent small farms quite above the definition of System of crofts 

 crofts, as that definition has been adopted by the ^^^ ^^^* *^^^ ^''^^*^- 

 Commission. That is to say, these farms, or shares in 

 one farm, would now represent a rent above the ;^30 

 line. Thus, for example, the two farms of Gott and 

 Hianish, now representing a rental of ^163, are 

 specially mentioned in the report of 1769 as having 

 only four persons in possession. These two farms, if 

 now similarly divided, would therefore represent a 

 much more substantial class of farms than the crofts 

 now existing, although these have been much raised 

 and improved within the last thirty years, by the 

 operations which I shall subsequently explain to the 

 Commission. The same observation applies to almost 

 all the farms which were then let under lease, or from 

 year to year, to small tenants. 



This shows the delusion which is commonly enter- 

 tained, that the system of very small crofts is an old 

 one. The truth is that in Tyree at least, and in many 

 other places, it is not nearly one century old. The same 

 conclusion is even more apparent when we see in this 

 rental of 1 767 that almost all the farms which at a long 

 subsequent date became overrun and cut up into miser- 

 .ably small possessions, were then not occupied by small 

 tenants at all, but by individual lessees, or " tacks- 

 men," as they were called in the Highlands. Among 

 the farms then held in this way I may specify Balle- 

 phuil, Balemartine, and Barrapol — all of them farms 

 which, thirty years ago, had become excessively over- 



