The book Arran; - Cook Clan

IMPROVEMENT AND EMIGRATION 213
parts farther south. The resolution of these discords is
of course possible, but this is not the place for it ; all that
is necessary here is to suggest why such improvement was
feared and resisted by a people neither degenerate nor un-
intelligent, nor, as the sequel will show, averse from labour.
The Arran pioneers of Megantic County, Quebec, were neither
weaklings nor sluggards, yet Arran had thrust them forth.
It was in 1815 that the improvement of the Duke's
property in the island was taken in hand and pursued for
the next twenty years with firmness and system. It does
not need detailed explanation. One has just to picture to
oneself the methods of the time before, as already analysed,
and then turn one's eyes on any modern farm—compact,
singly occupied, fenced, drained, and cleaned, with an
appropriate rotation of crops and the implements of the time
—and the difference is what was given a beginning in 1815.^
Runrig came to a violent end on the Hamilton lands, though
it lingered elsewhere a while longer, and may be said still to
exist at BaUiekine (Banleacain).
Some of the more serious accompaniments are these.
Many smaller farms were appropriated to form larger farms
of 100 to 400 acres arable each, and as no local man had the
capital or experience to handle units of such size, farmers
were introduced from other improved districts on the main-
land. Others of the small holdings, in districts better suited
for the rearing of sheep and cattle, were appropriated to this
end. The rest was divided up for individual small tenants
—in a few cases for sets of two—who had to build suitable
houses, fence and enclose with ditches and hedges. For
the houses they had timber and lime from the proprietor
and a year's rent ; the plants for the hedges were also
supplied. Regulations were laid down for the rotation of
crops, and waste land in the fields was to be brought under
cultivation. Later, terms were made for extending cultiva-
' Details from Paterson's Account, as cited.