Sutherland Reclamation. 
443 
Mr. John Fowler is said to have spent 30,000Z. before he 
commenced to sell machinery for ploughing by steam. It would 
have been a strange mistake to argue that each set of tackle he 
sent out must therefore be almost as costly as the first. It 
would be equally erroneous to conclude that the very large 
outlay that has been incurred in the first application of steam- 
power to such work as this is any fair criterion of the cost of 
applying it afterwards in a systematic instead of a tentative 
manner. 
Happily, his Grace is not the man to be easily discouraged 
by the difficulties that commonly attend the commencement of 
any sfreat and useful undertaking. He might otherwise have 
been daunted not only by the expense, but even more by want 
of support from his tenants. It might have been anticipated 
that the men of Sutherland would have been found following 
their chief as of old, shoulder to shoulder, with an intelligent 
perception that victory in this fight would mean increased 
prosperity for the county and themselves. But, with a few excep- 
tions, among whom the ^Master of Blantyre stands first, the rest of 
the tenantry have as yet been content to look on without giving the 
aid that they might have rendered. In the autumn of 1877 
notice was given that the turnips on two of the new farms at 
Shinness were for sale for consumption on the land. Several of 
the tenants drove their sheep along the high road past the farms, 
to be wintered out of the county, without once asking the price 
of the home-grown roots. Turnips grown on old land are gene- 
rally of better feeding quality than the produce of newly broken 
ground, and there was probably some fear that the land would 
not carry sheep well through the winter ; but it was dis- 
couraging to find that none of the large sheep-farmers would 
venture on a feeding experiment to back up their landlord's 
enterprise ; an experiment too that was afterwards carried out 
most successfully by ^Ir. Blake, who wintered the Duke's sheep 
upon these turnips with excellent results. It is also to be re- 
gretted that as yet no sheep-farmer, except the Duke's nephew, 
has offered to rent the newly reclaimed land at Shinness. This 
want of alacrity in co-operating with his Grace may be in 
part explained by the results of the past few seasons, which 
have been as unsatisfactory to the sheep-farmers in the north 
as to the holders of arable land in the south. At such a time 
men are slow to venture into new and untried branches of their 
business ; but much of it must be set down to other and more 
objectionable causes. 
The majority of the Duke's tenants in Sutherland belong to a 
class much more like the wealthy squatters (i. e. holders of large 
sheep-runs) in Australia than the ordinary run of tenant-farmers 
