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Melness, a Crofting Community on the North Coast of Sutherland"
Dr. James Coull
Scottish Studies, 7, (1963).
Used by Kind Permission of Dr Coull
At the end of the eighteenth century, the stock in this area of Sutherland were all of unimproved breeds (Sinclair 1795: 147), and of prime importance were black cattle, which were kept on the mountains inland in summer, but on the inbye land in winter (Sinclair 1795: 149). In 1792 (there were 2,142 cattle in Tongue parish, and 2,846 of the much less valuable sheep; horses numbered 538, and the omniverous and hardy goat was more valuable then than now - there were 714 of them (0.S.A. 1792: 523). The small tenantry participated on a humble scale in the trade in cattle, which fetched about £2.10s per head and were doubtless the main source of cash Income.
By 1840, the introduction of commercial sheep rearing had restricted the emphasis on cattle, and the crofters had got rid of their old breeds and were raising and, Cheviot- Blackface crosses, while the big farmers in the area reared pure (N.S.A. 1845: 179). New horse breeds were coming in too, and the was now rare. If the breeds of stock had improved, it seems that their management had not, for all types of stock were stunted of growth: already stocking had reached a level which the land could not adequately support. Even so, sheep numbers were certainly less than now - few families had more than 12 or 15 sheep Note 4 Click Here before 1914. In the latter nineteenth century, most crofters kept a pig for household use, and it was customary for groups of them to take it in turn to rear bulls. In 1883, the method of disposing of stock - both cattle and lambs - was by selling them to travelling dealers from Caithness Note 5 Click Here.
Right up until World War I it was the custom for stock to be herded on the common during the cropping season; each township provided a herd for its own animals, but the system ended in 1915 with the erection of a substantial fence to separate the hill grazing from the inbye land, helped by a grant from the Department of Agriculture. Before this these herds, who were usually young boys or old men, were paid £2 or £3 per season. According to the grazing regulations formalised in 1896, Note 6 Click Here the souming on the common is one cow and follower and six sheep per £1 of rent; and in practice, this gave an average of some three cows and followers, and twenty sheep per crofter. For purposes, one cow was equivalent to five sheep, and one horse to eight sheep. up on the Moine are also said to have been used until about the turn of the century.
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