their usual quantity of manure. The Duke of Argyle allows his tenants in Mull all the sea weeds of their farms, both cast and drifted, for manuring their lands; but yet, so high is the price of kelp of late years, that these tenants manufacture considerable quantities, and thus prove to a demonstration, that application to kelp is a more profitable use of sea weeds than to manure, even when the occupants are under no restrictions whatever. 7. Yard dung.-This manure is used in the Hebrides precisely as in other parts of the kingdom, and is preferred in its rotten state for every species of land excepting the stiffest clays. In Lewis, the inhabitants pay particular attention to this branch of husbandry; and, as we shall have occasion to mention afterwards, sacrifice their domestic ease and cleanliness to the advantage of securing a quantity of dung sufficient for their arable lands. In general, it is devoted entirely to the potatoe crops in the Hebrides, being thought too precious for any other purpose. An acre of well dunged land in Islay and Skye often produces 48 bolls of potatoes, or as much food as suffices for seven of the natives throughout the year. No comparison has as yet been made in the Hebrides with sufficient accuracy between the crops produced from lands manured with the. different sorts of dung specified in the plan of the reprinted reports, nor indeed are scarcely any other manures used than those which we have already described. 8. Composts. These are made up of the manures which we have above enumerated, and promise to be prosecuted in the Hebrides with great spirit and skill. In Islay we found compost dunghills frequent, and very skilfully managed. Instead of allowing the running waters from the higher grounds to run away with the substance of their manures laid up in heaps near their houses, they contrive a channel for these waters through their grounds without interfering with their middings, and thus save the best part of them from being hur ried away to the next river or the sea. Simple as this expedient is, yet we have found it seldom adopted in the Hebrides, and were grieved to see the poor people losing two thirds of their yard-dung by carelessness with regard to securing it from the rains. Some farmers in Arran have a good plan for increasing the quantity and improving the quality of their middings. They lay some inches of sand, from 8 to 12, on the ground where they propose to make their composts, and take care that the spot is level, and has no running water passing through it. They then throw in weeds, dung, cleanings of ditches, bottoms of peat stacks, seaweeds, rubbish of old houses, straw, and every thing that comes in the way, which may help fermentation, especially brine of herring, or of salted meat, sea-waters, &c. until the month of April or May, when the compost is carried off to the fields. In this way they contrive to have a considerable quantity of manure at a cheap and easy rate, and that too of the best quality. Of this mixture they lay 20 or 25 cart loads upon an acre; and have tolerable crops for the first and second years. Did they observe a proper plan in their rotations of crops, they might contrive to have both double the quantity of compost manure for such parts of their farms farms as require it, and to have triple the returns which are yielded at present from such lands as they have in cultivation. The proportions of materials for compost middings cannot easily be fixed, without a previous and a perfect knowledge of all the materials, and the relative natures, of which they consist. Where peat-moss is used in the Hebrides, it is, in consequence of the abundant supply, used liberally in all composts, especially on sandy and clayey soils. Either with sea-weeds or with lime, it occupies two-thirds of the mass, and is found to ferment readily, and to assist in the fermentation of other substances even when mixed in that proportion. Composts of sea-weeds, shell-sand, peat-moss, and sea-ouze, are sometimes met with, and have proved extensively useful in those isles where the command of pure and unmixed manures is precarious and slender. Of this description of composts, Captain Cameron of Loch-maddy, in North Uist, Mr Mackinnon of Corry, in Skye, many farmers in Islay, Gigha, and Collonsay, and a large proportion of the inhabitants of Lewis and Harris, afford good examples; and it is likely that they shall speedily be imitated by the tenants of the different isles in their vicinity, who are witnesses of the good effects of their industry. SECTION SECTION IV.-IRRIGATION. A SMALL field in the possession of Mr Blane, Collector of the Customs at Rothsay, in Bute, was the only spot, excepting garden ground, on which regular irrigation occurred in the Hebrides. It is not, indeed, natural to expect that this improvement shall be much attended to in a hilly country, almost continually envelopped in mists and rains, and which seldom suffers from drought, excepting in sandy districts, where the command of water for irrigation would be accompanied with great trouble and expence. However much, therefore, we admire the process by which lands in Wilts and Dorset, not otherwise worth 6s. an acre, are raised to the value of L.3 or L. 3. 10s. we cannot dwell upon this section in a report of a district in which it is almost totally unknown. CHAPTER CHAPTER XIII. EMBANKMENTS. SECTION 1.-AGAINST THE SEA. WHERE arable land of good quality is scarce, and where any such can be procured in the most convenient situation, at a moderate expence, it might be imagined that no opportunity would be neglected of securing it for the advantage of the party concerned; yet we find in the Hebrides, where ground of this description is extremely valuable, many extensive tracts, situate near manure, and, of course, lying at the level of the sea, overflown at every tide with a few feet of salt-water, and which might be secured against inundation at so small an expence that the first year's crop would pay it. The tenants cannot be blamed, for they have not the power of making any serious exertion whatever, |