44 CATTLE. 



impoverishment, becoming fattened for the butcher in a few months, 

 after being placed on some of the rich summer pastures of Islay, 

 Lewis, or Siiye. 



The cows were housed during the winter ; the htier was never 

 removed from them, but fresh layers of straw were occasionally laid 

 down, and so the floor rose with the accumulation of dung and litter, 

 until the season of spreading it upon the land, Avhen it was taken 

 away. 



The peculiarity of the climate, and the want of inclosed lands, and 

 the want, too, of forethought in the farmer, were the chief causes of 

 this wretched system of winter starvation. The rapidity of vegetation 

 in the latter part of the spring is astonishing in these islands. A 

 good pasture can scarcely be left a fortnight without growing high 

 and rank ; and even the unenclosed, and marshy, and heathy grounds, 

 are comparatively luxuriant. In consequence of this, the farmer fully 

 stocked, or overstocked, even this pasture. He crowded his fields 

 at the rate of six or eight beasts, or more, to an acre. From their 

 natural aptitude to fatten, they got into tolerable condition, but not 

 such as they might have attained. Winter, however, succeeded to 

 summer : no provision had been made for it, except for the cows ; 

 and the beasts that were not properly fed even in the summer, lan- 

 guished and starved in the winter. 



The Hebrides, howevei-, have partaken of that improvement in 

 agriculture of which we shall have frequently to speak v/hen describ- 

 ing the different districts of Scotland. In the island of Islay, the 

 following is the general system of management among the better 

 kind of farmers, and the account will apply to the Hebrides generally, 

 and to Argyleshire. 



The calves generally are dropped from the 1st of February to the 

 middle of April. All are reared ; and for three or four months are 

 allowed to suck three times in the day, but are not permitted to 

 draw any great quantity at a time. In summer, all the cattle are 

 pastured ; the calves are sent to their dams twice a day, and the 

 strippings, or last part of the milk, is taken away by the dairy-maid. 

 The calves are separated from their dams two or three weeks before 

 the cast-cows are sent to the cattle-tryst at the end of October, the 

 greater part of them being driven as far as the Lowland districts, 

 whence they gradually find their way to the central and southern 

 counties of England. 



The calves are housed in the beginning of November, a-nd are 

 highly fed on hay and roots (for the raising of which the soil and 

 climate are admirably adapted) until the month of May. When 

 there is plenty of keep, the breeding cows arc housed in November, 

 but in general they are kept out until three or four weeks before 

 calving. In May the whole cattle are turned out to pasture, and, if 

 it is practicable, those of dififerer.t ages sre kept separate ; while, by 



