CHAPTER V.

IMPLEMENTS.

THE state of agriculture in every country may be estimated by the quality of the implements generally used by the people. Where their tools are clumsy and inadequate to the operations requisite for carrying to perfection this first of human arts, we may lay our account with finding every thing else in a backward state. If the materials of which agricultural instruments are made do not abound in such countries, no improvement in the form or construction of them can reasonably be expected. They must be imported from some other quarter, and propagated by imitation. Such is precisely the condition of the Hebrides. The inhabitants, destitute of wood and iron, probably never would have made any change in the rude and simple instruments of husbandry used for ages by their ancestors, had not the rapid improvements carried on of late years in other parts of Scotland, roused them to similar attempts.

On some of the islands we now find as good implements as any in Great Britain; and on all of them the richer tenants gradually introduce the improved tools of

their lowland countrymen. There are a few implements peculiar to the Hebrides: of these we now give a short account.

Caschrom, (i. e. crooked foot or crooked spade) is probably the very oldest tool known in these districts. It has been in general use from the most ancient times, and is still retained in the Long Island, Skye, and many of the continental parishes of Ross, Sutherland, and Inverness-shire. In no parishes, however, is it found in exclusive possession of the tillage of the ground, excepting those of Uig and Lochs in the island of Lewis. These have not a single plough, and yet they maintain a population of about L.5000 souls. All their corn, and all their potatoes are raised with the caschrom; and it appears that the increase of population in these two parishes keeps pace with that of the adjoining ones, however rapid the latter has been; a sort of proof, though not conclusive, that the instrument is not altogether contemptible.

It is formed of a shaft or handle of oak or ash, about 5 feet 9 inches long, and strong enough to bear the whole power of the labourers two hands, without bending or breaking. The head of the tool, which is almost at right angles to the shaft, consists of a flattened piece of the same wood, sometimes added and fastened by iron hoops to the shaft, and sometimes a continuation of the shaft, when the piece of wood admits of it by its natural curvature. This head is two feet nine or ten inches long, and about four inches broad, and one inch and a half thick, and armed with an iron coulter of quadrangular form, for penetrating the ground. There is a strong wooden pin fixed at the junction of the shaft

and head, on which the labourers right foot applies the whole power of his body for pushing with two jerks the head of the caschrom into the ground, previously to his turning the clod, which he always does from right to left, walking backward during the operation of turning the successive clods.

The caschrom costs about 2s. 6d. to 3s. and lasts for 10 or 12 years, without any other repairs than perhaps adding a new edge to the iron plate once a-year.

On a careful comparison of different circumstances, in various parts of the Long Island and of Skye, we ascertained that 12 labourers will turn an acre of land in a day with the caschrom, and that so completely, that the operation is nearly equal, in effect of pulverising the soil, to two ordinary Hebridian ploughings. Where the ristle (an implement to be immediately described) is used, ten men can caschrom an acre per day. Supposing each man to be paid Is. 6d per day, the tillage of the acre will cost 18s. But the acre which can admit of the plough, may with good management be tilled in a day with four Hebridian common horses, or even with two gearrans, such as are used in Islay, and therefore cannot be calculated to exceed an expence of 10s. Labour by the caschrom, then, on good level land will amount to nearly double the expence of ordinary ploughing, and may fairly be stated at triple the expence of the improved tillage practised on the lands of Islay, Gigha, and Collonsay.

The great advantage of this instrument is, that it enables the operator to work in mosses, or bogs, where no horses can walk, and in stony ground inaccessible to the plough. Many districts of Harris and of Skye would

be

be unsusceptible of tillage without it. Its superiority to the common trenching spade, or to any tool which pe netrates the ground perpendicularly, is very great, resulting both from the ease with which the operator wields it, and the length of the horizontal clod which its powerful lever enables him to turn over. The 10 or 12 men who can till a Scotch acre with the caschrom, would not undertake two-thirds of the same acre with a common spade, nor would they at all undertake to clear it half so effectually of stones. The caschrom is particularly well calculated for getting stones of from 20 to 200 pound weight out of the ground, and infinitely superior in this respect to any other species of spade that we have seen.

In draining the side furrows of potatoe lazy-beds (unquestionably the best mode of cultivating that valuable root in the greater part of the Hebrides) this instrument is singularly useful. In this operation, and in turning waste ground, a Highlander will work rather more than double the quantity with the caschrom that he will do with any other kind of spade. He can till in one day as much ground as will sow a peck of pats; and if he works tolerably from the end of January till the middle of May, he will cultivate ground enough for supplying himself and a family of six children and his wife, with meal and potatoes all the year round. This is done without any expence, but merely the half crown paid once in 10 or 12 years for his caschrom.

The tillage is reckoned more productive than what is done by the plough; and I am informed, even to

the

the length of one fourth more. however, it fails totally *.

When the crop fails,

Many parts of the Hebrides, especially of the granite range of the Long Island, with its numerous islets, which contain a large population, would scarcely admit of cultivation by any other instrument hitherto used, and in them therefore the caschrom proves peculiarly useful, and promises to maintain its ground for many years.

It is not improbable that this tool, of an improved form and of more perfect construction, might be successfully introduced into our West Indian colonies, especially those islands whose surface is somewhat similar to that of the Long Island of Scotland +.

The best caschrom is found in the island of Bernera near North Uist; and, indeed, in the whole district of Harris to which that island belongs, this instrument is used to better purpose than any where else. The returns of barley have been 25 fold, and of potatoes from 38 to 44:

* This fact has been uniformly and consistently stated to us through the northern Hebrides, but without any satisfactory reasons being given for it. The general appearance of the crops tilled with the caschrom was greatly in favour of that instrument, on every species of soil.

We have had occasion to recommend it in one of the wine districts of Hungary, where the ground is very rocky and hard; and the instrument appeared to give much satisfaction to the person who first used it in his vineyard.