Sutherland Reclamation. 
407 
is capable of being made greatly more productive either as 
arable land or by surface improvement, and that the measure 
is recommended by many considerations of public policy as 
well as of private interest. Briefly replying to three objections 
that have been raised, he states that the climate, though late and 
cold, is not so late or so cold as that of many districts in profit- 
able cultivation in the north of Scotland ; that on the farthest 
west margin to which he proposed to extend the improvement 
he had seen grown excellent crops of oats, barley, turnips, and 
potatoes, while there were traces of corn cultivation in old 
times from 110 to 150 feet higher than the existing fields of 
Shinness. Admitting that the district is especially liable to 
mildew, causing loss to grain and green crops, he points out that 
this had been due to mists arising from large " floes," or green 
mosses full of stagnant water, and would be wholly removed by 
thorough drainage. In reply to the third objection, " that the 
locality is so exposed that the wind would do injury," he remarks 
that during spring, summer, and autumn the injury from wind 
would be less here than on the eastern coasts ; and although it 
is undoubtedly a wild place for snow-drift in winter, that might 
be altered by planting for shelter, and by erecting stone and turf 
fences. The inland position of the district had formerly made 
the cost and difficulty of communication a very serious objec- 
tion : but since the railway had been carried to Lairg this 
objection had been removed. He recommended the operation 
because the demand for arable land was increasing ; the character 
of the soil is adapted for oats and green crops, the crops most 
wanted in Sutherland. " For oats, principally in meal, and 
turnips, it is not unreasonable to say that at least 25,000/. go off 
the estate to Caithness and Ross ; and, though oats and oat- 
meal are not increasing in cost, the value of turnips has risen 
so much that it must affect, I am certain, the progressive value 
of hill pastures in the north. And more than that has happened. 
Before the recent extensive reclamation of land in the older arable 
districts of Ross and Inverness, the hill sheep used to have 
out-runs of heath or other coarse pasture, to which the turnip 
was an adjunct merely ; and they not only wintered more cheaply, 
but the wintering was better for them. Now, penned up on 
the turnip-field, occasionally getting out only on to short arti- 
ficial grass, they lose a great deal of their hardiness, and the 
result is that a great many have to be sent back again for a 
second wintering or they would die. This is a very serious 
matter — is becoming more so every year ; and in view of these 
facts a large reclamation of land in the centre of Sutherland has 
additional interest. 
" As all land improvement must proceed gradually, and im- 
