Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

acriculhtre. 209
plough could not be used, even were the space greater;
and if the business is to be conducted by the spade or
the Highland caschrom, it is pretty nearly indifferent
whether there are twenty small patches to be dug, and
sown, and reaped, or two. As the spade cultivation is the
most effective, as the people have abundance of spare
time, and as they have little capital to purchase horses
or ploughs, I know not but that this system, bad as it
appears at first, is the best that could have been adopted.
There are many other things, not only in this country,
but all the world over, respecting which a little reflec-
tion and a more minute acquaintance with all the colla-
teral circumstances, would induce us to reserve, if not
often to change, our first superficial judgments. It would
be well if those who have given themselves and others
much fruitless trouble on these and similiar subjects
connected with the Highlands, would learn to distinguish
between what is abstractedly best, and what is attain-
able ; what the present system will admit or bear.
The caschrom is a far more powerful instrument than
the spade ; yet it is not so effectual in pulverising- the
soil. It is, in fact, rather a plough than a spade ; the
only difference being, that it carries a share without a
coulter, and is pushed by men instead of being drawn by
horses. As far as is yet known, this primitive plough is
confined to the Highlands : no traces of it at least have
been found elsewhere; not even in India, where the sim-
plest draught plough, formed merely of a crooked branch,
is still in use. We might imagine the caschrom to have
been the contrivance of man where the use of animals
was unknown. It is generally wrought by two men :
but having no provision for turning- the turf, that is done
by a lateral motion of the long lever. It would be an
improvement, in many places, to adopt the light Swedish
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