448 
Sutherland Reclamation. 
!Mr. Sellar's remark that " there is not much change during 
the last twenty years in the fertility of the rjood green-land," may 
draw attention to the fact that there are two descriptions of 
green-land in the county, which may be briefly distinguished as 
the natural and the artificial. The first description is com- 
paratively rare, occurring upon the narrow belt of naturally 
fertile soil along the east coast, and also found occasionally 
inland at the base of some mountain torrent that spreads all the 
soil that it washes down from the hillside over a small space of 
level land at its foot. There is no doubt that such spots as 
these show little or no signs of exhaustion. 
The other and most prevalent description of green-land is 
that referred to by most of my correspondents, and the only 
description contemplated in my inquiry. It is land that in 
a state of nature would not be covered with grass, but by an 
inferior herbage. It owes its fertility not to natural causes, but 
to the artificial " condition " put into it by the tillage of the 
crofters. That which man gave to it, human agency is now 
taking away. The natural consequence of the treatment which 
it has received during the last fifty years is that it is rapidly 
losing its grass and reverting to heather and other Alpine 
growths. 
Mr. Sellar occupies a good arable farm at Culmalie, near to 
Golspie, and has of late years been in the habit of using con- 
siderable quantities of artificial food and manures upon the land 
under the plough. Upon the grass- land he made a single ex- 
periment six years ago, which he considered at the time to be a 
failure. 
A small strip out of the middle of a pasture-field received a 
dressing of superphosphate of lime. The grass was constantly 
eaten close by sheep, and for five years Mr. Sellar doubted 
whether any beneficial result had been produced. In the present 
year the field was laid up for hay, and the strip that had been 
top-dressed six years ago was clearly distinguished by the 
greater luxuriance and the darker colour of the grass upon it. 
Even a single experiment like this, \vhen it confirms the 
teaching of agricultural experience in every other district, should 
go far to remove local prejudice and convince men that it is by 
the judicious use of phosphatic manures that the exhausted 
fertility of the green-lands of Sutherland must be restored, as 
the fertility of the Cheshire grass-land w^as restored early in 
this century by the use of bones, after it had been exhausted by 
the constant removal of its phosphates in the cheese sent out 
of the county. 
While all agree that the green-land has thus become very 
much impoverished, there is much more diversity of opinion 
