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Old Highland Industries.
399
told that this was not an uncommon way of preparing their snuflf,
and that they preferred it to the shop snuff from Glastjow, wliich
they said contained glass, which cut their nostrils and lips.
In the olden times want of communication and means of transport
imposed on all our ancestors the necessity of laying up winter
stores and preparing and preserving food, and at Martinmas the
meal girnal was fdled, and the mart or cow and other animals
killed for winter use.
The preparation and utilisation of all parts of these animals
for winter use formed no small item in the home industry, and the
ingenious uses to which all parts of the animal was put and the ingenuity
it developed, must have been beneficial to the operators.
Within my own recollection I have seen the animal killed and
the hams and flesh salted ;
the fat prepared and made into candles ;
the white and black puddings i)repared ; the horns converted
into spoons by the travelling tinkers ; the skin tanned and converted
into shoes, brogues, sieves for corn, and other articles. All
these operations required a certain amount of skill and experience,
and the education of the peasantry in such arts must have prepared
them, in a singularly suitable manner, to form the best emigrants
and colonists.
If I follow up this line a little further, we shall find that the
making of clothes formed also an impoi'tant factor in house work.
Throughout the Highlands and in many of the Lowland houses
in Scotland, till the beginning of the century, almost all the ordinary
worsteds were prepared for the weaver, as well as the linens,
and even yet I know of some goodly stock of home-made sheeting
and linens.
In the better class the dame had her maids to spin in tlie
evening round the fire, and in the Highland cottage I have seen
often the old wife and her daughters busy spinning the wool, but
this is now exceptional and spasmodic. A few years ago the Harris
cloth, under the encouragement of the late Countess of Dunmore,
and other ladies, became fashionable, and considerable quantities
were forced on the market, but after the novelty had passed away,
the demand subsided. The manufactui-ers took up the trade, and
with their superior appliances they produced imitations at a
cheaper rate, and a more finished article for the cockney consumer.
The preparation of these cloths formed an important and
picturesque feature in Highland life, and almost every traveller
during the Jast century described the process more or less. I
need not therefore go into details. After the wool was cleared,