Planting of forest trees on the great scale may now be accomplished with every prospect of a free market, and ample remuneration. This alone, over a country such as the mainland of the Highlands, may, in time, be an improvement more than sufficient to repay the great ex pellee incurred by the public in opening it up. In the mean time, planting on a liberal scale will adorn and shelter the country, and may become a source of high attraction and elegant amusement for the landholders. A supply of timber in sufficient abundance in the country, and the use or water-borne coal, may naturally be ex pected to furnish means for introducing manufactures,. especially that of wool, which is raised in great abun dance in the Highlands.
Facility of conveyance of lime and farm-produce, must naturally suggest to the people. of the country to open quarries, and burn the limestone that abounds in ninny districts ; and there cannot be a doubt of a market, on a growing scale, for the returns.
Trade and population require supplies of fat cattle and sheep; and, of course, many in improving circumstances, be fattened within that remote district. This new demand would improve the general style of farming. Green crops and inclosures would be necessary on most farms ; and these naturally associate with corn, and require the labours of an increasing population, furnishing also the means of their subsistence.
Growing interest and activity naturally discover new sources of employment for the people. The iron forges of the Highlands might be renewed on a greatly improv ed and enlarged scale ; mines and minerals of different sorts might be worked to advantage ; quarries of mar ble, blue slate, or useful stone, would probably be open ed ; and this coning-, so long threatened with desolation, might smile, and might be able to rear and support an augmented population.
Ignorance alone, or prejudice, can maintain, that sheep farming is inconsistent with such views in the Highlands. Even this legitimate system is imperfect and incomplete. without cultivation. Plantations to shel ter the sheep stocks, (which they do admirably, and with out being injured, when of sufficient age,) are necessary to the prospering of the improved breeds of sheep ; and no stock or breed of sheep can be brought to perfection, without the benefit of green crops to fatten, and of in closures to separate them, and to enable the farmer to manage them to advantage. The best cultivated pasto ral districts present such an arrangement ; and they dis cover such a due proportion of black cattle as is neces sary to secure the means of comfort and of improvement, together with the largest returns from the soil. The
milk, hides, and tallow of these, afford comfortable means of employment and of subsistence ; and a much greater number of people is maintained, than could have been supported under an exclusive sheep system. Woods, cattle, and the mixed culture of hemp and flax, naturally present extending advantages in prosecuting the fishe ries, and in attending to various useful manufactures, besides promoting the comf9rt of the inhabitants, and cooperating with the other modes of improvement in preventing emigration.
The Highlands, thus opened up and improved, would furnish useful employment and ample subsistence for a much greater number of inhabitants than they have ever yet contained. It is true, that the remarks made above apply chiefly to the mainland, and that other views would be necessary in respect of the northern and west ern isles.
If the mere crofting system were all the resource that is now accessible to the Highlanders, it could not much be depended on. There is a considerable waste of time and labour in it, and the means and skill employed in this way are commonly deficient. No doubt, it may in some degree be useful, particularly if the crofters can also find occasional employment as labourers to the far mers; but an altered and improved system of farming appears to open the great resource on the mainland. The rise of a competent number of inclosures, and a proper stock of cattle, together with calcareous ma nures and green crops, and corn of course, properly selected, and cultivated with judgment, would not only furnish employment and subsistence, but would greatly increase the produce and value of those extensive tracts which are capable or improvement ; and the conse quence would be, that the country•at large would be converted from a sheep-waste into a fertile alpine terri tory. It would then be in the power of landholders, at a moderate expence, to clothe it with rich and ornamen tal plantations ; and alterwaids that country NN ou id pre sent many inducements and attractions to reside in it ; and manufactures, together with the fisheries, would more certainly and extensively prosper. Ica short, there would no longer be any occasion for the people to emi grate in bodies from the mainland of the highlands.