SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS. 547 



can only be characterised as mediaeval. But in the 

 twentieth century, such abuse of power is, fortunately, 

 no longer possible. 



The system of agriculture was practically the same in 

 the eighteenth as in the sixteenth century, when Dean 

 Monro visited the islands ; and it was probably the same 

 in the sixteenth, as it was in the sixth, century. In no part 

 of the British Islands were conditions so backward, and in 

 no part was the standard of comfort so low. The cas- 

 chrom, the crooked spade-plough employed in agriculture, 

 typified the stage of agricultural development at which the 

 people had arrived ; and the cas-chrom was in common use 

 until the nineteenth century, and is not yet wholly extinct. 

 Not until the second half of the eighteenth century, was 

 the use of hay known ; and not until the nineteenth 

 century, was artificial drainage practised. The crofting 

 system, the principle of which was one man one holding, 

 was not introduced until the first quarter of the nineteenth 

 century, when it superseded the run-rig system, the co- 

 operative principle of which was found to be unconducing 

 to energy. Barley and oats, with occasional patches of 

 rye, linseed, and (in Lewis), hempseed, were the only crops 

 grown until 1743, when Clanranald (or Macdonald of Bois- 

 dale) introdtced the potato to South Uist from Ireland. 

 At first, the people would have none of the new root, which 

 they regardeo with disgust and contempt.* " You made 

 us plant those worthless things," they said to Clanranald, 

 " but, Virgin Vlary, will you make us eat them ? " The 

 potato was introduced to Lewis between 1750 and 1760, 

 and met with a similar reception. When the prejudice 

 against it was eventually removed, the pendulum swung to 

 the other side. The despised tuber became the staff of life 

 in the Long Island. And when the great famine swept 

 over the Outer Hebrides between 1846 and 1850, it was the 

 failure of the potato crops that was mainly responsible for 

 the terrible destitution which prevailed. Public and private 



* They had prevously used the brisgean t the root of the silver weed. 



