Note 26 — Chapter XLII

Still they would seem to have been of comparatively little use for farming operations; for Dr Walker, writing about 1760, when the breed was at least no worse than it was previous to 1745, speaks thus:—“The number of horses is by far too great upon every Highland farm. They are so numerous, because they are inefficient; and they are inefficient, because they have neither stature nor food to render them sufficiently useful. Their number has never been restrained by the authority of the landlords, like that of the sheep. For in many places, they are bred and sold off the farm to advantage, being sent in droves to the south. In this case, their numbers upon a farm may be proper. But in general, there are six, eight, or ten horses upon the smaller farms, and sixteen, twenty, or more upon the larger; without any being bred for sale, and even few for supporting the stock. None of them perform the work of a horse; even where such numbers are kept, and purely for labour, each of them, in many places, do not plough two acres of land annually. They get no food the whole year round, but what they can pick up upon the hills, and their sustenance is therefore unluckily accounted as nothing.”