the ground, has in the long handle a very forcible lever.

According to the different mode of tillage, farms are diftinguished into long land and fhort land. Long land is that which affords room for a plough, and short land is turned up by the spade.

The grain which they commit to the furrows thus tediously formed, is either oats or barley. They do not fow barley without very copious manure, and then they expect from it ten for one, an increase equal to that of better countries; but the culture is fo operofe that they content themselves commonly with oats; and who can relate without compaffion, that after all their diligence they are to expect only a triple increase? It is in vain to hope for plenty, when a third part of the harvest must be referved for fagd.

When

When their grain is arrived at the ftate which they must confider as ripeness, they do not cut, but pull the barley: to the oats they apply the fickle. Wheel carriages they have none, but make a frame of timber, which is drawn by one horse with the two points behind preffing on the ground. On this they On this they fometimes drag

home their fheaves, but often convey them home in a kind of open panier, or frame of sticks upon the horse's back.

Of that which is obtained with fo much difficulty, nothing furely ought to be wafted; yet their method of clearing their oats from the husk is by parching them in the straw. Thus with the genuine improvidence of favages, they deftroy that fodder for want of which their cattle may perish. From this practice they have two petty conveniencies. They dry the grain fo that it is easily reduced to meal, and they escape the theft of the thresher. The taste contracted

from the fire by the oats, as by every other fcorched fubftance, use must long ago have made grateful. The eats that are parched must be dried in a kiln.

The barns of Sky I never faw. That which Macleod of Raafay had erected near his house was fo contrived, because the harveft is feldom brought home dry, as by perpetual perflation to prevent the mow from heating.

Of their gardens I can judge only from their tables. I did not obferve that the common greens were wanting, and suppose, that by choofing an advantageous expofition, they can raise all the more hardy efculent plants. Of vegetable fragrance or beauty they are not yet ftudious. Few vows are made to Flora in the Hebrides.

They gather a little hay, but the grass is mown late; and is fo often almost dry and

again very wet, before it is housed, that it becomes a collection of withered ftalks without taste or fragrance; it must be eaten by cattle that have nothing else, but by most English farmers would be thrown away.

In the Islands I have not heard that any fubterraneous treasures have been difcovered, though where there are mountains, there are commonly minerals. One of the rocks in Col has a black vein, imagined to confift of the ore of lead; but it was never yet opened or effayed. In Sky a black mass was accidentally picked up, and brought into the house of the owner of the land, who found himself strongly inclined to think it a coal, but unhappily it did not burn in the chimney. Common ores would, be here of no great value; for what requires to be separated by fire, muft, if it were found, be carried away in its mineral state, here being no fewel for the smelting-house or forge. Perhaps by diligent fearch in

this world of stone, fome valuable species of marble might be difcovered. But neither philofophical curiofity, nor commercial industry, have yet fixed their abode here, where the importunity of immediate want fupplied but for the day, and craving on the morrow, has left little room for excurfive knowledge or the pleafing fancies of diftant profit.

They have lately found a manufacture confiderably lucrative. Their rocks abound with kelp, a fea-plant, of which the afhes are melted into glass. They burn kelp in great quantities, and then send it away in fhips, which come regularly to purchase them. This new fource of riches has raised the rents of many maritime farms; but the tenants pay, like all other tenants, the additional rent with great unwillingness; because they confider the profits of the kelp as the mere product of perfonal labour, to which the landlord contributes nothing.

How