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Page 53
The crofters of to-day have lost for the most part the traditions of the
drawbacks and hardships of this ancient system, with its oppressive
services, to which many of their ancestors were subject, and have
commonly retained only the tradition of the right which every clansman
had to some portion of the clan lands. In 1745 the clan organizations
were abolished and the chiefs transformed into landlords and invested
with the fee-simple of the land. But, while changes were gradually made
on some estates in the direction of conformity to the English system,
most of the old customary rights of the people continued to be
recognized. The tenant was commonly allowed to occupy his holding from
year to year without interruption. Money rent gradually took the place
of service or rent in kind, but the amount exacted does not seem to have
been often increased arbitrarily. The rights of common, which were often
of great value, were respected.
The descendants and successors, however, of the old Scotch lairds did
not always display the same regard for prescriptive rights and usages.
In some cases the extravagance and bankruptcy of the old owners caused
the titles to pass to Englishmen, while in others the inheritors of the
estates were more and more inclined to insist upon their legal rights
and to introduce in the management of their property rules similar to
those in use in England. Early in the present century sheep-farming was
found to be profitable, and many large areas of glen and mountain were
cleared of the greater part of their population and converted into
sheep-farms. Many of the mountainous parts of Scotland are of little use
for agricultural purposes. Formerly the crofters used large tracts as
summer pastures for their small herds of inferior stock. By and by the
proprietors found that large droves of better breeds of sheep could be
kept on these mountain-pastures. The crofters were too poor to undertake
the management of the large sheep-farms into which it was apparently
most profitable to divide these mountain-lands, and sheep-farmers from
the south became the tenants. By introducing sheep-farming on a large
scale the landlords were able, they claimed, to use hundreds of
thousands of acres which before were of comparatively little value. The
large flocks of sheep could not, however, be kept without having the
lower slopes of the mountains on which to winter. It was these slopes
that the crofters commonly used for pasture, below which, in the straths
and glens, were their holdings and dwellings. The ruins of cottages, or
patches of green here and there where cottages stood, mark the sites of
many little holdings from which the crofters and their families were
turned out many years ago in order to make room for sheep-farms. The
proprietors sometimes recognized the rights of these native tenants, and
gave them new holdings in exchange for the old ones. The new crofts were
often nearer the sea, where the land was less favorable for grazing and
where the rights of common were less valuable, but the occupants had
better opportunities for supplementing their incomes from the land by
fishing and by gathering sea-weed for kelp, from which iodine was made.
There were, however, great numbers who were not supplied with new
crofts, but turned away from their old homes and left to shift for
themselves. Some of these, too poor to go elsewhere, built rude huts
wherever they could find a convenient spot, and thus increased the ranks
of the squatters. Others were allowed to share the already too small
holdings of their more fortunate brethren, while others, again, found
their way to the lowlands and cities of the south or to America. The
traditions of the hardships and sufferings endured by some of these
evicted crofters are still kept alive in the prosperous homes of their
children and grandchildren on this side of the Atlantic. The process of
clearing off the crofters went on for many years. In 1849 Hugh Miller,
in trying to arouse public sentiment against it, declared that, "while
the law is banishing its tens for terms of seven and fourteen
years,--the penalty of deep-dyed crimes,--irresponsible and infatuated
power is banishing its thousands for no crime whatever."
Lately, owing to foreign competition and the deterioration of the land
that has been used for many years as sheep-pastures, sheep-farming has
become much less profitable than formerly, and many large tenants have
in consequence given up their farms. The enthusiasm for deer-hunting
has, however, increased with the increase of wealth and leisure among
Englishmen, and immense tracts, amounting altogether to nearly two
millions of acres, have been turned into deer-forests, yielding, as a
rule, a slightly higher rent than was paid by the crofters and
sheep-farmers. Much of this land is either unfit for agricultural
purposes or could not at present be cultivated with profit. Some of it,
however, is fertile, or well suited for grazing, and greatly coveted by
the crofters. The deer and other game often destroy or injure the crops
of the adjoining holdings, and thus add to the troubles of the occupants
and increase their indignation at the land's being used to raise sheep
and "vermin" instead of men. Most Americans have had intimations of this
feeling through the accounts of the hostility that has been shown to our
countryman, Mr. Winans, whose deer-forest is said to cover two hundred
square miles. While evictions are much less common than they were two or
three generations ago, there has all along been a disposition on the
part of the proprietors to enclose in their sheep-farms and deer-forests
lands that were formerly tilled or used as commons by the crofters and
cottars. In comparison with the crofter of to-day the sub-tenant of a
hundred years ago had, as a rule, more land for tillage, a far wider
range of pasture for his stock, and "greater freedom in regard to the
natural produce of the river and moor."
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