spared during the whole autumn, and become highly serviceable " in winter when it is most required.

"The above art is well understood and carefully practised by the "storemasters of the south in the pasturage of sheep. The flocks are attentively herded from morning till evening. They are not "suffered to stray at large, but are directed by the shepherd in their "walk during the day, and to their resting-place at night. They are "conducted to the pasture proper for them at the different seasons, "and in such a manner that the whole herbage upon the farm is "rendered useful. This practice of the south country herds is "known to many people in the Highlands, and they ought to observe "it carefully in the management of their sheep. But to observe it "in the management of their black cattle is a matter of still greater "moment. Yet in this article they are in most places inexcusably "inattentive. The cattle are not properly herded, nor directed to "their pasture with sufficient care; they are allowed to roam at large over the whole farm; they are suffered to pick and choose "their own pasture, which can never turn out either to the advantage "of the farmer or to the benefit of the stock at large. The grass at "great heights is neglected, and left to decay and wither in the winds. "The coarser grasses in the lower parts, to which the cattle ought to "be confined during summer, are avoided, and in a great measure "lost. The spots of fine grass which should be their relief early in "spring and late in autumn, are perpetually eaten to the ground. "In this matter there is no dependence to be had on the instinct of "cattle, for they would rather have a mouthful of such fine grass "than a bellyful of grasses of a coarser kind. To consume the coarse pasture upon a farm at the proper season, they must be compelled by careful herding. It is only in this way that the whole pasture upon a Highland farm can be turned to its full account.

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"The farm servants in the Highlands are not accustomed to that "regular and assiduous herding of cattle that is necessary in a pastoral country. They look after them only by fits and starts, and "without a due regard either to the nature of their food, or of the grounds which they ought to occupy. The servants employed are "not even clothed for the purpose. Hardy as they are, a tartan "jacket, a kilt, and brogues that take in and give out the water as it comes, cannot afford sufficient shelter to a man who is to remain "the whole day abroad in cold winds, rain, and snow. In the moun"tainous parts of the south of Scotland, and in as severe situations as any in the Highlands, the herds are clothed in a different manner. Besides an under waistcoat, they have clothes of warm "coarse cloth, warm stockings of a double thread, strong thick

"shoes, and a large thick plaid to cover them entirely upon every emergency. Thus clothed they can continue all day in the most "boisterous weather, and remain abroad, as they often do, in the "most tempestuous nights; but without such raiment they could "neither pursue their business nor do justice to their masters."

Under these conditions of agriculture, it is not too much to say that more than one-half, probably it would be more correct to say that more than three-fourths of the total meat-producing acreage of the country was entirely and absolutely lost, and that the conversion of the mountains into sheep grazings was as much a reclamation of waste lands as if the whole of that vast area had been for the first time reclaimed from the sea. Sheep are wonderfully adapted for the complete consumption of all available pastures. They climb everywhere, and are never so healthy and strong as when they have wide and steep ranges as their feeding ground. Accordingly the moment their adaptability to the Highlands was established, they spread rapidly over the whole of it. The increase of value consequent on this husbandry, has been enormous; and, notwithstanding Professor Levi's objection, I must indicate to the Society what has been this increased contribution of the Highlands to the national wealth, by representing it in the figures of rental. Thus, I am told of one estate which at the beginning of this century was offered under lease at 400l. a-year, and is now worth 10,000l. a-year; that is, the rise has been in the proportion of 100 to 4. I know cases myself where, even within the last twenty-two years, the rise has been from 200l. to 1,100l.

Pennant gives some data which enable us to estimate the value of the cattle exported (1772) from the large parish of Gairloch in West Ross at about 1,260l. I am informed by the proprietor that the value of its exports now is upwards of 13,000l. In this case there has been also a great increase of population; his estimate was 2,800; the census of 1861 gave 5,438.

Of the next parish of Loch Broom, Pennant says that as in most of the other lochs, only a very few of the natives possessed boats. Now I am informed almost the whole population have nets and shares in boats for the herring fishery.

The truth is, that the diminution of a population purely agricultural, so far from being a phenomenon affecting the Highlands only, is but one example of the effects of a great general law, which has been operating and is now operating over the richest and most highly civilized countries in the world. To increase produce, and at the same time to economise labour, is the double object and the invariable result of every improvement in the arts. The art of agriculture is no exception; in it, as in all others, the advance of knowledge and of skill dispenses with a large share of the labour of

human hands. This, at least, is the result of one stage, and that a most important one, in the progress of agriculture;-a population numerous, but accustomed to, and contented with a low standard of living for themselves, and yielding no surplus for the support of others, gives place to a population smaller in amount, but enjoying a higher civilization, and contributing in a corresponding degree to the general progress of the world. Thus it is that the richest and most productive parts of our own country are comparatively the most thinly peopled. The splendid agriculture of the Lothians and of Berwickshire, exhibits miles of country in the highest condition of cultivation, with a singular paucity of human habitations. The same result appears in those counties of Engiand where agriculture is equally advanced. Nor is the fact of a stationary or declining population, in districts purely agricultural, confined to countries where land is owned and occupied under the peculiar conditions which prevail with us. In France where, as is well known, very different conditions of property and of tenure exist, the same fact nevertheless appears. Whatever increase of population arises in France, is an increase in the towns, which does not do much more than keep pace with the decrease of population in the rural districts. It is stated in an interesting article in the "Revue des Deux "Mondes "* of last month (May, 1866), that the greater number even of the small towns and villages in France remain stationary, or actually decline in population. More than half the departments of France are declining in population; and it is remarkable that one of these most nearly resembling the Highlands in the conditions of physical geography, the department of "Les Basses Alpes," is specially mentioned as having lost since the middle ages more than one-third of its population. It is a still more remarkable example of the operation of the same great law, if it be true, as the same article asserts that a similar result appears even in the new world, and that a great number of the agricultural districts in New England have lost a great part of their population by double emigration, one into the great commercial cities of the coast, another to that same far west which is attracting so many millions from the crowded populations of Europe.

Is it then a sentiment founded upon reason, is it a wise philosophy, which deplores, and regards as the symptom of decline, a phenomenon which, as a matter of fact, is exhibited over so large a part of the most thriving nations of the world, and which, as a matter of theory, can be connected so certainly with the very causes of our prosperity, and with the most convincing evidences of our growth in knowledge?

VOL. XXIX.

"Du Sentiment de la Nature," par M. Elie Reclus.

PART IV.

2 N

Such are the general facts and principles which account for, and satisfactorily explain, the continuous emigration of the Highlanders, so far at least as it has yet gone. But here the question arises, how far has it gone? It is true that there are particular districts less populous than they once were, but the counties, as a whole, have all gained in population since the beginning of the century, except the county of Argyll. Argyll in 1801 stood at 81,000, and in 1831 had reached its maximum at 100,000; it is now only 79,000. But Inverness was only 72,000 in 1801, and is now 88,000; Ross and Cromarty had 56,000 in 1801, and has now 81,000.

The theoretical result to which those who deplored that emigration have always looked forward, was no other than this-that the Highlands would become a mere grazing ground of the southern counties and of England-tenanted by a few large capitalists and by a few solitary shepherds. This is the result which those who do not know the Highlands, very commonly suppose has actually arrived. They think that tillage is diminishing, that fertile land is being given up to sheep, that little or nothing is being spent on the improvement of the soil. I have no hesitation in asserting that this is a pure delusion, a delusion as gross-and this is saying much-as has ever prevailed in England respecting the social condition of the most distant countries of the earth, and which is the less excusable when it is propagated respecting a country every part of which is within thirty-six hours of London. It is perfectly true that there are many spots in the Highlands which were formerly tilled which are tilled no longer; but this is only saying that the rude and ignorant agriculture of other days is gone. It is perfectly true that millions of acres are now under sheep which formerly supported, during half the year, the cattle of the summer sheiling, and for the rest of the year was ranged over by nothing but the eagle and the fox. But this is only saying that the true and natural use has been found for those upland pastures, which now maintain throughout the year thousands upon thousands of the most valuable of the animals which minister to the wants of man. It is perfectly true that glens which once maintained, with frequent famines, and with occasional assistance from unwilling Lowlanders, a population which lived in idleness, ignorance, and poverty, are now tenanted perhaps by some one or two, or three or four or five tenant farmers; but this is only saying that at last that change has come in the Highlands which had come long before in the Lowlands and in England, and which has been in every portion of this country the one indispensable condition of an improved and improving agriculture. Unfortunately, and as I think, much to our national discredit, we have not hitherto had any statistics of agriculture which are of any value; but the general fact is notorious to all who know the Highlands, that tillage has not been

decreasing, but on the contrary has been increasing, and that enormously. It has retired indeed from the steeper banks and braes, and from the light shingly soils which were formerly the only soils adapted by natural drainage for cereal cultivation. It has retired also for the most part from the little patches among the rocks on which the ancient populations raised their handfuls of barley. But for every acre which has been thus abandoned to pasture, probably not less than ten acres have been added during the last century to the tillage land of the Highland counties. The valleys have to large extent been cleared and drained, and fields of turnips are yearly extending their boundaries up the slopes of the lower hills. Comfortable farmsteads have been and are being rapidly substituted for the rude and rickety buildings of the older system.

And to this improved and extended tillage, sheep farming has been not a hinderance or a substitute, but a most powerful stimulant and encouragement. Dairy farming, where it prevails, has contributed to the same result. My own impression is, not that there is too little, but that there is too much cereal cultivation in the Highlands. Except in certain districts of fine land and a comparatively favourable climate, corn is not, and can never be, raised at a profit in the Western Highlands. But it forms, or is as yet believed to form, a necessary item in the rotation of crops, and a necessary accompaniment of the turnip cultivation, which is essential for the feeding of all kinds of stock.

Let us now look at the general result as indicated by the state of occupation of land in the Highland counties. It was evident to me, from Professor Levi's paper, that he was entirely ignorant of the facts upon this subject, because he wrote as if land in the Highlands were occupied for the most part either by great capitalists holding miles of country under sheep, or else by the old crofter class, of whose condition he gave such a deplorable account. No allusion, whatever, was made to any middle class of tenantry, and accordingly in my address to the Highland Society at Inverness, I took occasion to refer to this strange omission. Professor Levi in the letter to the Morning Post," to which I have already referred, confirmed the impression I had derived from his paper, and says specifically that he apprehends very few of that middle class of tenants exist in the Highlands. Of course the definition of classes is somewhat indeterminate. Let us, therefore, assume a definition for the purpose of arriving at determinate results. In the Lothians and in other districts of high farming, a farm of 1,000l. a-year rent would not be reckoned in the class of large farms; neither would it be so considered among the great grazings of the north. But I will take a much lower figure, I will assume 500l. a-year rent as the dividing line--farms below that rental only being reckoned as belonging to