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have no less than 764 arable acres, besides 256 acres 

 of meadow, whilst the **souming" of cattle amounts 

 to no less than 804. It is obvious that after making 

 every allowance for some land of a light and sandy- 

 character, this great extent of arable acreage and of 

 meadow pasture — upwards of 1000 acres — capable of 

 sustaining so large an amount of stock, must be very 

 moderately rented at ^415. This rental is beyond 

 doubt very much below the rental which these lands 

 would realise if they were let in farms — still small 

 — but of a more substantial size ; and it exhibits in 

 a strong light the truth and justice of the complaint 

 made against my factors that they had " used every 

 means to exact more rent from them." 

 Erroneous state- Another indication of the exotic and stereotyped 



nients as to half of gQ^^,^,gg ^f ^j^jg complaint from the three farms I speak 

 Island being sheep ^ ^ 



farms. of is to be noted in the phrases used about the larger 



farms. " The half of the island was under sheep tacks," 

 &c., &c., &c. Now it so happens that the only large 

 farm within several miles of these crofters is not a sheep 

 farm at all, but the farm on which I have taken so much 

 pains, and laid out so much money, to constitute a first- 

 class dairy farm. I refer to the farm of Balephetrish. 

 But "sheep farms" are the current bugbear of the 

 agitating agents, and the poor tenants have simply 

 repeated the stock phrases without the smallest refer- 

 ence to the local facts. These phrases are all the 

 more absurd in the present case, since I have good 

 reason to believe that the very men who use them are 

 themselves sheep-farmers on no inconsiderable scale — 

 that is to say, they profit largely by subletting their 

 land to the larger farmers for the ** wintering" of sheep, 



