Taking stand at the date, about 1840, of the _New Statistical Account_, and looking back, the conclusion which, we think, any unprejudiced inquirer must come to is, that the Highlands as a whole had improved immensely. With the exception of some of the Western Islands, agriculture and sheep-farming at the above date were generally abreast of the most improved lowland system, and the social condition of the people was but little, if any, behind that of the inhabitants of any other part of the country. In most places the old Scotch plough was abolished, and the improved two-horse one introduced; manuring was properly attended to, and a system of rotation of crops introduced; runrig was all but abolished, and the land properly inclosed; in short, during the early half of the present century the most approved agricultural methods had been generally adopted, where agriculture was of any importance. Thirlage, multures, services, payment in kind, and other oppressions and obstructions to improvement, were fast dying out, and over a great part of the country the houses, food, clothing, and social condition of the people generally were vastly improved from what they were half a century before. Education, moreover, was spreading, and schools were multiplied, especially after the disruption of the Established Church in 1843, the Free Church laudably planting schools in many places where they had never been before. In short, one side of the picture is bright and cheering enough, although the other is calculated to fill a humane observer with sadness. Depopulation and emigration went on even more vigorously than before. Nearly all the old lairds and those imbued with the ancient spirit of the chiefs had died out, and a young and new race had now the disposal of the Highland lands, a race who had little sympathy with the feelings and prejudices of the people, and who were, naturally, mainly anxious to increase as largely as possible their rent-roll. In the earlier part of the century at least, as in the latter half of the previous one, few of the proprietors wished, strictly speaking, to depopulate their estates, and compel the inhabitants to emigrate, but simply to clear the interior of the small farms into which many properties were divided, convert the whole ground into sheep pasture, let it out in very large farms, and remove the ejected population to the coasts, there to carry on the manufacture of kelp, or engage in fishing. It was only when the value of kelp decreased, and the fishing proved unprofitable, that compulsory emigration was resorted to.