The book Arran; - Cook Clan

THE NEW ARRAN 249
The most important event of recent years in Arran history
has been the appearance in the island of the new Land Court
and their decisions of reduced rents for the small tenantry
but some of these decisions are still the subject of judicial
process. The great crises of Highland agriculture, of earlier
date, had not the same results in Arran as elsewhere. The
famine of 1846, consequent on the failure of the potato crop,
does not seem to have affected the island to an e:jctent com-
parable with its effects in other parts of Scotland. Such as
it was, however, it induced the Duke of the time to give
liberal abatements of rent for that year, extending to upwards
of thirty per cent, on the average.^ But twenty
years later there was an all round increase, and so also on
two subsequent occasions. The Crofters Commission of 1883
and the Act of 1885 did not comprehend Arran as a crofting
district, though 281 tenants petitioned Parliament for its
inclusion. A new spirit, too, had arisen regarding game.
In 1834 Mr. Paterson, the factor, notes that there was still
a considerable number of survivors of the ancient red deer
' in the northern part of the island.' Further, ' A small
kind of deer from America, of which a pair was introduced
several years ago in the woods of Arran Castle, has thriven
so well, that there are now more than thirty individuals
grazing at large.' In fact, deer introduced from America
flourished as well in Arran as Arran people did when ex-
ported to America. Even then, too, black and red grouse
were very abundant :
' the former so much so as to be very
destructive to the corn crops.' Pheasants had been introduced
a few years before, and abounded in the Brodick dis-
trict. These conditions have intensified since Paterson's
day, and the destructiveness of game was one of the com-
plaints before the Land Court. Compensation in such cases
is rarely satisfactory to both sides. But the central point
there raised awaits final decision, while illuminating one of
VOL. II.
1 Glasgow Herald, March 12, 1847.
2 I
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