Sutherland Reclamation. 
413 
dunged, and drilled in May with turnips, yielding a very good 
crop. These were eaten off by hoggets, getting a little hay and 
a run out on the hill. In the spring of 1879 the field was 
grubbed by oxen and sown with 6 bushels per acre of Swiss 
oats, without any artificial manure, but seeded down with cloA^er 
and rye-grass. In August 1879 the oats looked well, a good 
even crop. Two small plots were sown as an experiment, one 
of them with seed that had been grown one \ear, and the other 
with seed that had been grown two years upon the farm. There 
was no very marked difference to the eye between these plots in 
August. Last year the crop from home-grown seed was one- 
third more than that grown from similar seed bought elsewhere. 
No. la (20 a. 3 r. 32 p.). A field of deep peat, imperfectly 
drained ; it was treated up to February 1878 in all respects like 
the previous field, but it has since been broken up ; it is much 
overrun with sorrel and moss. In one part many rough pieces 
of dry fibrous peat remained on the surface in 1877 ; the result 
of running ordinary heavy harrows over the land after it was 
ploughed in 1874, and then leaving it exposed to the sun and 
wind till the loose pieces acquired the toughness and elasticity 
of dry sponges. This would not have occurred if the " discer," 
a subsequent invention, had been employed. A few drains were 
relaid in 1878. 
No. 1 h (26 a. 3 r.). In 1874, oats; 1875, grass cut for 
hav, a good crop ; 187G, grass fed off and ploughed up in 
winter by horses ; 1877, oats ; at the north end a very promising 
crop, but uneven at the south end, the drains being here defective. 
This crop (together with all the corn crops on the new farms, 
and a very great proportion of the crops grown on long-esta- 
blished farms in the north of Scotland) was lost in a hurricane 
of extraordinary violence on the night of the 22nd of November, 
the harvest having been delayed by a heavy snowstorm early 
in October ; particulars of this disastrous harvest will be given 
further on, when treating of No. IV. farm (Lubvrec). The drains 
were relaid over a third of this field in 1877, when the main out- 
fall pipe w"as found to have been broken by an engine passing 
over it. 
Wherever steam-cultivation is adopted, it is very important 
that the drains be laid on solid land below the peat. 
Owing to divided responsibility in carrying out the work, 
many of the drains were laid at the ordinary regulation 
depth of 4 feet, in places where the thickness of peat required 
that they should be carried an extra depth in order to rest on 
solid ground. In autumn 1877, the land was "disced" by 
steam ; in April and May 1878, it was dunged and ploughed 
by horses and oxen, and drilled with swedes, Aberdeen yellows, 
VOL. XV. — S. S. 2 E 
