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those exercises of authority which come from ownership 

 and cannot be enforced without the possession of the 

 rights of property. The abolition of the run-rig system 

 was always most unpopular in the Highlands. In 

 Tyree, as elsewhere, it was abolished, and could only be 

 abolished by the authority of ownership. Every sub- 

 sequent measure of improvement — the regular division 

 of individual possessions, — -the fencing of them,^ — the 

 selection of the best candidates for the holding of them, 

 — the building of a better class of houses, — the intro- 

 duction of ploughs in substitution for the old barbarous 

 '* crooked spade," — the introduction of carts, — of grain 

 of a better kind, — of superior stock, — of dairy farming ; 

 —in short, every item of progress in agriculture has been 

 the work, and often the arduous and expensive work, of 

 the proprietor. Moreover, even all these would have 

 been useless without the arrest laid upon subdivision, 

 and the steady progress made towards the establish- 

 ment by consolidation of more adequate and comfort- 

 able possessions. If a higher standard of comfort has 

 now been attained, and if a higher standard of intelli- 

 gence has followed it, this happy result has been due 

 entirely to the causes I have indicated. The tendency 

 to subdivide is now, indeed, checked amongst the 

 larger crofters, but it has not been eradicated in the 

 class w^hich still represents, in a mitigated degree, the 

 former condition of things. It is curious under what 

 shifts and disguises — sometimes under what accidents 

 of mere laziness — the old tendency is liable to re- 

 appear. Some cow is said to want a byre. The byre 

 is built, and in a short time the cow is expelled, and 

 a new family is installed instead. I need not point out 

 that nowhere in the Low Country, or indeed in any 



