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The following description of the situation of the
Mailers is extracted from the Survey of the Northern Counties drawn up
for the Board of Agriculture, and with slight variations may be applied to
the class of people who improve waste land in all parts of the Highlands.
‘In the Black Isle we have numbers of this description
of cultivators, by whose exertions many considerable
acquisitions of arable land have been gained from our barren wastes and
moors, in addition to different properties in this district. They
generally follow some handicraft employment, such as weaver, shoemaker,
taylor, carpenter, mason, dyker, &c. &c. and many are mere day
labourers only. These poor people are often indiscriminately planted on
the skirts of waste or moor lands, next adjoining to those last
cultivated, and now we shall suppose in the hands of a farmer or tenant.
After his house is erected for the Mailer, he is left
at freedom to dig away and cultivate what ground he can, for there is
rarely occasion to limit him. The aids afforded him, and terms granted,
are various, and generally, I suppose, proportioned to the expectations
from his exertions.
I find that some give seven years lease gratis, wood
for his house, and some other pecuniary allowances. At the expiration of
the lease, a small acknowledgment is imposed, and perhaps not for three or
four years more, as his industry deserves.
Some assign them one, two, or three acres, and never
remove them, on paying, viz, the men 10s. and widows 5s. per ann. and
giving
1.5 days service in harvest but, however, paying 6d. per day to the men,
and 4d. to the women and all others able to work, a little drink, but no
victuals.
Some with seven years’ lease, rent free at first, give
‘them labouring utensils, and also seed for the first three years; and
some give a life rent and wood for their houses, on paying 1s. per annum,
but must yearly take in two acres. Day services in harvest, and some other
trifling exactions, may possibly be stipulated for by all. The only means
the Mailer has for cultivation are his own and family personal labour with
the spade, his ashes, and the dung from his miserable animal of a horse,
which he keeps for the purpose of bringing home his turf for fuel: and he
generally commences with potatoes: when he thrives he possibly acquires
two horses, a few sheep, and perhaps a hog.
I find that there are advocates for and against this
practice. The general objections to these settlers are that they
are great depredators, are in declared hostility to all inclosures and
improvements of, any higher nature than their own, and
unmerciful destroyers of all the grounds around them, scalping and tearing
up every bit of better soil, and digging holes and pits either for their
turf or procuring earth or gravel for their dung-heaps; and this to such a
degree, that when removed, no farmer can meddle with such abused and
ill-conditioned lands: also the small and tedious progress they make, and
their natural indolence and inefficiency. On the other hand, there are
those who think this mode of improvement sure, tho’ very slow and tedious:
that they are the only means within the reach of many proprietors, and not
rejected even by those who might adopt a higher and more. effectual
system, and both have already experienced their good effects in the
increase of their rent rolls. Almost all acknowledge the accommodation
derived from the assistance of their services at a certain easy rate in
harvest and other husbandry-work and particularly here where day
labourers are not otherwise to be pro‘cured.’ |
