328 RUKAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



and wheat, turnips sown in drill, and artificial grasses, 

 took the place of the brambles so dear to the ancient 

 inhabitants. 



All Mr Loch's hopes have been realised. Time has 

 brought all his prognostications to pass. The necessary 

 capital for effecting all this could never have been found 

 in Sutherlandshire. It required the marriage of the 

 heiress of the county with a very wealthy man, who was 

 willing to devote part of his fortune to the improvement of 

 his wife's patrimony. In acknowledgment of this revolu- 

 tion, the English government raised Sutherland to a 

 duchy ; and, by a great sacrifice, the Marquess of Stafford 

 saw the noble name of his family merged in that which 

 he helped to restore. The son of the Countess of Suther- 

 land and Marquess of Stafford now enjoys the title of 

 Duke of Sutherland. From these eight hundred thousand 

 acres this nobleman derives an income of 40,000, and 

 that, it is said, is only a fifth of his immense fortune. The 

 rest is derived from his paternal estates in the counties 

 of Stafford and Salop, which have also been greatly im- 

 proved, but in another way, owing to their different 

 character. 



When the present Duke came into possession of his 

 Highland estates in 1840, he was received with marks 

 of attachment on all hands. The remembrance of old 

 struggles was effaced, the smoke of past burnings had for 

 ever passed away. All the farmers who had taken 

 leases, whether in the depopulated mountain districts of 

 the interior, or on the uncultivated moorlands upon the 

 coast, had made money ; and Mr Loch, the factor, had 

 become a member of Parliament. The population, which 

 had increased from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand, 

 nd were still congregated along the coast, no longer 



ught of leaving it. There the bad lands, cleared of 



