484 
Sutherland Reclamation. 
rain — we often spend our toil and strength for nought. Although 
the manures applied have not yet given a return proportionate 
to their cost, it must be remembered that they are chiefly phos- 
phates, slow in their action, and not liable to be washed out of 
the soil. 
In describing what has been done on this group of farms in 
Kildonan, I have not hesitated to point out from time to time 
all that appears questionable or defective in management ; feel- 
ing sure that no amount of honest criticism will lessen the credit 
due to Mr. Greig for his skilfully planned and ably executed 
scheme of operations. 
It is easy to be wise after the event. It is not so easy to pro- 
secute a great work like this, economically and efficiently, with 
labourers untrained to steady work, and in a country so thinly 
populated that it presents many of the difficulties usually en- 
countered only by a colonist. 
My thanks are especially due to Mr. Greig for the cordiality 
with which he has carried out the wish of the Duke of Suther- 
land, that full access should be affijrded me to all records of 
expenditure, and for the frankness with which he has supple- 
mented those accounts and given further information. 
Conclusion. 
The following Table (p. 485) shows in a condensed form the ex- 
tent and the cost of the reclamation works recently completed by 
the Duke of Sutherland. When we add to this the manual 
work still in progress on 200 acres at Rhifail and 217 acres at 
Bighouse, and the steam work on 2000 acres in the five farms 
at Kinbrace, we see that an amount of capital has been expended 
upon these undertakings that must of necessity produce a great 
effect upon the county. 
There are probably many agricultural readers who have 
shared with me in the first impression produced by brief notices 
that have appeared from time to time of the work done in 
Sutherland — a suspicion that, after all, it was merely the ex- 
pensive amusement of a wealthy proprietor, justified chiefly on 
the ground that a nobleman mav as well create farms out of 
moorland for his pleasure as keep an expensive stud of racers. 
This report will fail in its aim if it does not remove such an 
impression. As an effort to arrest the gradual exhaustion of the 
soil, and the consequent impoverishment of the estate, these 
reclamation works are well worthy the attention of landed pro^ 
prietors. The benefit which they may confer upon the tenants of 
sheep farms has been already shown during the unusual severity 
