The small, shaggy black cattle, so well known even at the present day in connection with the Highlands, was the principal live-stock cultivated previous to the alterations which followed 1745. This breed appears to have been excellent in its kind, and the best adapted for the country, and was quite capable of being brought to admirable perfection by proper care, feeding, and management. But little care, however, was bestowed on the rearing of these animals, and in general they were allowed to forage for themselves as best they could. As we have said already, the Highland farmer of those days regarded his cattle as the only money-producing article with which his farm was stocked, all the other products being necessary for the subsistence of himself and his family. It was mainly the cattle that paid the rent. It was therefore very natural that the farmer should endeavour to have as large a stock of this commodity as possible, the result being that, blind to his own real interests, he generally to a large extent overstocked his farm. According to Dr Walker,[27] over all the farms in the north, there was kept above one-third more of cattle than what under the then prevailing system of management could be properly supported. The consequence of course was, that the cattle were generally in a half-fed and lean condition, and, during winter especially, they died in great numbers. As a rule, the arable land in the Highlands bore, and still bears, but a very small proportion to that devoted to pasture. The arable land is as a rule by the sea-shore, on the side of a river or lake, or in a valley; while the rest of the farm, devoted to pasturage, stretches often for many miles away among the hills. The old mode of valuing or dividing lands in Scotland was into shilling, sixpenny, and threepenny lands of Scotch money. Latterly the English denomination of money was used, and these divisions were termed penny,[28] halfpenny, and farthing lands. A tacksman generally rented a large number of these penny lands, and either farmed them himself, or, as was very often done, sublet them to a number of tenants, none of whom as a rule held more than a penny land, and many, having less than a farthing land, paying from a few shillings to a few pounds of rent. Where a number of tenants thus rented land from a tacksman or proprietor, they generally laboured the arable land in common, and each received a portion of the produce proportioned to his share in the general holding. The pasturage, which formed by far the largest part of the farm, they had in common for the use of their cattle, each tenant being allowed to pasture a certain number of cattle and sheep, _soumed_ or proportioned[29] to the quantity of land he held. “The tenant of a penny land often keeps four or five cows, with what are called their followers, six or eight horses, and some sheep. The followers are the calf, a one-year-old, a two-year-old, and a