GENERAL SYSTEM OF LABOUR. 93 



coast to feed on turnips and foggage on the grass lands. 

 A shepherd who accompanies them is known as an ' orra 

 shepherd/ generally an unmarried man, who may be 

 engaged for that particular purpose only, or he may be 

 regularly employed at the farm work during the year, 

 but assisting the shepherds at such special times as washing, 

 dipping, etc. He may also assist at haymaking for the 

 flocks. The shepherd in arable districts where sheep 

 are turnip-fed during the winter have much work changing 

 and enclosing the ground, etc. In some of the southern 

 counties special men are engaged to assist at lambing- 

 time, being paid between 253. and 303. a week with board 

 extra. Shepherds are usually given extra money payment 

 or allowances in kind for lodging and boarding extra 

 hands taken on for lambing, clipping, etc. In many 

 districts sheep farmers make an arrangement to assist 

 each other at clipping- time. The married farm servants, 

 who are generally shepherds, men in charge of cattle, and 

 first horsemen, usually live rent free in cottages which 

 are let with the farm to the farm tenant. Cottages are 

 more generally found on large farms than on smaller ones, 

 the small farmers more usually employing unmarried 

 men, lodging and boarding them in the farmhouses. This 

 is often known as the ' kitchen system.' In some counties 

 the married men who live in cottages are called ' cot- 

 tars/ ' cottagers/ or ' cot men.' Several systems for lodging 

 and boarding unmarried men are in existence. In many 

 cases, particularly on the smaller farms, they lodge and 

 board in the farmhouse, and sleep in an apartment at the 

 farm - steading, usually adjoining the stable. In a good 

 many districts they are frequently lodged and boarded 

 in the houses of the married men. Another system is to 

 lodge them in a bothy adjacent to the farm - buildings. 

 Food is either cooked for the men in the bothy, or else 

 the ' bothy system ' is adopted in its fullest sense, and the 

 men cook their own food in the bothy, in which case they 

 usually receive allowances of meal, and sometimes milk 

 and a small quantity of potatoes, and buy the remainder. 

 Occasionally food is provided for the bothy men in the 

 kitchen of the farmhouse. Beds, blankets, towels, the 

 necessary furniture, lights, and coal are also provided. 

 Bothies are chiefly found on the larger farms generally 

 speaking the bothy system is much more common in the 

 north-eastern part of Scotland than in the southern. In 

 the Border counties those touching the English Border, 

 namely, Berwick, Dumfries, Peebles,Roxburgh, and Selkirk 

 and the Lothians it practically does not exist. The system 

 is the most prevalent in Forfar, Kincardine, and Perth. 

 It also prevails to a greater or lesser extent in the counties 

 of Inverness, Elgin, Banff, Nairn, Aberdeen, Fife, Kinross, 

 and Clackmannan, though the kitchen system is likewise 

 in existence in these counties. In Caithness, Orkney, 



