164 Report on some features of Scottish Agriculture. 
1870,' (p. 54), Mr. George Culley, one of the Assistant-Com- 
missioners, gives the following synopsis of Mr. Murray's labour- 
arrangements : — " There are attached to this farm (including 
groom's and gardener's cottages) 21 cottages, and from these 
Mr. Murray obtains a staff of 23 men and lads, and 22 women. 
Nine of these cottages are occupied by cottars supplying 14 
female workers (of whom 13 are single women and one a widow) ; 
the remaining 15 cottages, as it were, under a voluntary system, 
contribute eight female workers. 
" Mr. Murray's system is a family one, in every sense of the 
word ; not only do his female house-servants all belong to the 
families of his farm-servants, but there were at the time I visited 
the farm six cottar houses occupied by the widows and daughters 
of men who had died in his service. 
" It may be that Mr. Murray conducts his labour arrange- 
ments on what to most farmers would appear too benevolent a 
scale ; but the enormous rent he pays from ordinary agricultural 
produce serves to contradict this, as well as to justify his boast, 
that during the quarter of a century he has occupied East Barns 
farm, no labourers of his or any members of their families have 
received parochial relief." 
In reference to education, Mr. Murray, in reply to the schedule 
of questions issued by the Commissioners, states that — " Boys 
and girls are kept at school until they are 12 or 13 years of age, 
by "which time it is understood that their education is finished. 
Occasionally, after a year's interval, they are again sent to school 
for a few months to revise their stock of learning. Evening 
schools also exist, at which the young people from 15 to 20 years 
of age have an opportunity of an additional revisal, of which they 
readily avail themselves. As far, therefore, as we are concerned, 
I see no necessity for interfering either with the labour of children 
or women." * 
These satisfactory conditions, which are very unusual, not only 
in degree but in kind, exhibit the Scottish system of labour under 
a most favourable light. Many of the labourers on the farm 
were born on it, and if the labourer of the last generation does 
not still sui'vive to do odd jobs and admire his grandchildren, it 
is most likely that he has left behind him the old wife, whose 
unconquerable activity finds vent in knitting stockings and 
general tattle. Thus we account for the fact that the inhabitants 
of the numerous cottages on the farm sheltered seven grand- 
mothers and four or five grandfathers, and the whole population 
amounted to nearly 150. 
* Appendix, part ii., to ' Fourth Report, 1870,' pp.,"112 and 113. 
