To quote further from Dr Walker’s work, which describes matters as they existed about 1760, and the statements in which will apply with still greater force to the earlier half of the century:--“The want of proper carriages in the Highlands is one of the great obstacles to the progress of agriculture, and of every improvement. Having no carts, their corn, straw, manures, fuel, stone, timber, sea-weed, and kelp, the articles necessary in the fisheries, and every other bulky commodity, must be transported from one place to another on horseback or on sledges. This must triple or quadruple the expense of their carriage. It must prevent particularly the use of the natural manures with which the country abounds, as, without cheap carriage, they cannot be rendered profitable. The roads in most places are so bad as to render the use of wheel-carriages impossible; but they are not brought into use even where the natural roads would admit them.”[17] As we have said already, farming operations in the Highlands lasted only for a few weeks in spring and autumn. Ploughing in general did not commence till March, and was concluded in May; there was no autumn or winter ploughing; the ground was left untouched and unoccupied but by some cattle from harvest to spring-time. It was only after the introduction of potatoes that the Highlanders felt themselves compelled to begin operations about January. As to the _modus operandi_ of the Highland farmer in the olden time, we quote the following from the old Statistical Account of the parish of Dunkeld and Dowally, which may be taken as a very fair representative of all the other Highland parishes; indeed, as being on the border of the lowlands, it may be regarded as having been, with regard to agriculture and other matters, in a more advanced state than the generality of the more remote parishes:--“The farmer, whatever the state of the weather was, obstinately adhered to the immemorial practice of beginning to plough on Old Candlemas Day, and to sow on the 20th of March. Summer fallow, turnip crops, and sown grass were unknown; so were compost dunghills and the purchasing of lime. Clumps of brushwood and heaps of stones everywhere interrupted and deformed the fields. The customary rotation of their general crops was--1. Barley; 2. Oats; 3. Oats; 4. Barley; and each year they had a part of the farm employed in raising flax. The operations respecting these took place in the following succession. They began on the day already mentioned to _rib_ the ground, on which they intended to sow barley, that is, to draw a wide furrow, so as merely to make the land, as they termed it, red. In that state this ground remained till the fields assigned to oats were ploughed and sown. This was in general accomplished by the end of April. The farmer next proceeded to prepare for his flax crop, and to sow it, which occupied him till the middle of May, when he began to harrow, and dung, and sow the ribbed barley land.