Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

222 AGRICULTURE.
g-iven portion of land could feed but a given number of
animals, whether held in common or not, and that they
might have increased the number of their useful animals
by diminishing their useless ones. But even in the mo-
dern crofting system, it is difficult to avoid entertaining
an unnecessary number of horses ; as those required for
a small tenement might equally do the work of a much
larger one. In fact there is no one of these small crofts
that could find constant work for one. Yet the evil is
much diminished ; as he who now possesses and can see
his own lot of land, forms a better conception of its va-
lue; while, being restricted to the pasturage of a certain
number of animals, or paying rent for each by the head,
he is not long' in learning that he may derive more be-
nefit from cattle or sheep, than from horses for which
there is no employment.
I must not enter more minutely into a subject, which,
more minutely treated, could only interest agriculturists.
Such a sketch is sufficient to convey a notion of the ge-
neral state of Highland cultivation ; limiting the term
Highland, of course, to those districts where the ancient
manners and habits still reign. To suppose that it in-
cluded all the Highlands, would be to repeat the error
which has perverted the general judgment on so much
that relates to this country. The Highlands are, as ma-
thematicians love to speak, a sort of evanescent quantity,
and can only be caught and fixed at a few points : while
I write, they are changing, and that which is now true,
may, in a few years, be false. Great innovations are daily
making in the system of agriculture ; and chiefly by the
larger proprietors who reside, by Low-country tenants,
and by Highlanders who have studied the Lowland cul-
tivation. In some districts, the smaller tenants are also
copying their better-informed neighbours, and this is
chiefly the case on the borders of the Low country, where