“At one of the detached properties, great care had to be taken, and engineering skill used, in the drainage. Recently a low-lying part of the lands, a mile and a half long by three-quarters broad, was a mixture of the lower stratum of peaty bog, marsh, and spouty sand, charged with ochrey-coloured water, impregnated with sulphur and saltpetre. Attempts made by former occupants to drain this place were fruitless, from want of depth and proper outfall. We found all the pipes in their drains completely choked by deposited ochrey matter. The whole subsoil was running sand. In order to make the drainage perfect, a main leading drain was made, 800 yards long, and in some places 8 feet deep, in which were laid ‘spigot and faucet,’ vitrified pipes 10 to 15 inches in diameter, jointed with cement to prevent sand from getting in, with junctions to receive pipes of smaller sizes, from 10 inches down to 6 inches. Minor drains are from 3½ to 4 feet deep, with tiles of 2 to 4 inch bore, the smaller sizes having collars on the joints. Large stone cisterns are formed to receive the silt, and ventilating shafts with iron gratings are built to give circulation of air. By these means the whole flat is drained effectually, and where bog rushes were the prevailing produce, crops of the richest wheat now grow. The stunted herbage and water were so poisonous that black cattle were known to have turned gray in a season (?). [78] “More than fifty miles of private roads have been made, and twelve miles of walks through the pleasure-grounds. One walk is six miles continuous, along the windings of fine scenery of the Alness. Upwards of forty miles of stone dykes and eighty of wire fences have been erected, enclosing the arable land and plantations. “For twenty years from three to four hundred men were employed; two hundred of them lived in a square of barracks for nearly eleven years, and so orderly were they that the services of a policeman were never required. There are still a number of men employed, but the improvements are now coming to a close. “All the assistance I had in the engineering and planning was that of a young man only seventeen years old when the works were begun, and we never had occasion to employ a man for a single day re-doing work. “I may further add that I have now the great pleasure of seeing my liberal employer reletting all his farms on the Ardross estate to the same tenants, on a second nineteen years’ lease,” (at increased rents, of course, my friend?) “the second leases having been renewed between two and three years before the expiry of the previous leases, and none of the farms were ever advertised.