sub-factor, in
every parish, and an agriculturist in the Dunrobin district, who gives
particular attention to instructing the people in the best methods of
farming. The factors, the ground officers, and the agriculturists all
work to one common end. They teach the advantages of draining; of
ploughing deep, and forming their ridges in straight lines; of
constructing tanks for saving liquid manure. The young farmers also pick
up a great deal of knowledge when working as ploughmen or laborers on
the more immediate grounds of the estate.

The head agent, Mr. Loch, has been kind enough to put into my hands a
general report of the condition of the estate, which he drew up for the
inspection of the duke, May 12, 1853, and in which he goes minutely over
the condition of every part of the estate.

One anecdote of the former Duke of Sutherland will show the spirit which
has influenced the family in their management of the estate. In 1817,
when there was much suffering on account of bad seasons, the Duke of
Sutherland sent down his chief agent to look into the condition of the
people, who desired the ministers of the parishes to send in their lists
of the poor. To his surprise it was found that there were located on the
estate a number of people who had settled there without leave. They
amounted to four hundred and eight families, or two thousand persons;
and though they had no legal title to remain where they were, no
hesitation was shown in supplying them with food in the same manner
with those who were tenants, on the sole condition that on the first
opportunity they should take cottages on the sea shore, and become
industrious people. It was the constant object of the duke to keep the
rents of his poorer tenants at a nominal amount.

What led me more particularly to inquire into these facts was, that I
received by mail, while in London, an account containing some of these
stories, which had been industriously circulated in America. There were
dreadful accounts of cruelties practised in the process of inducing the
tenants to change their places of residence. The following is a specimen
of these stories:--

"I was present at the pulling down and burning of the house of
William Chisholm, Badinloskin, in which was lying his wife's
mother, an old, bed-ridden woman of near one hundred years of age,
none of the family being present. I informed the persons about to
set fire to the house of this circumstanc