Highlands from 1745 down till near the end of the 18th century. One reason why perhaps emigration made so little odds in the way of improvement on the condition of those who remained in the country was, that no check was put upon the over-stocking of the farms with men and animals. In spite of emigration, the population in many districts increased instead of diminished. A common practice among those tenants who conjointly held a large farm was for a father, on the marriage of a son or daughter, to divide his share of the farm with the young couple, who either lived in the old man’s house or built a hut for themselves and tried to make a living out of the share of the pendicle allotted to them. To such an extent was this practice carried, that often a portion of land of a few acres, originally let to and sufficient to maintain one family, might in a few years be divided among six or eight families, and which, even if cultivated in the best manner possible, could not support its occupants for more than two or three months a year. On account of this ruinous practice, Skye, which in 1750 had 15,000 inhabitants, most of whom were in a condition of misery and want, in 1857, in spite of large and repeated emigrations, had a population of about 23,000. This custom was common in many Highland (chiefly western) districts down to only a few years ago, and was fruitful of many pernicious consequences--of frequent famines, the constant impoverishing of the soil, the over-stocking of pasture-land, and continual wretchedness. In some cases, the farms vacated by the old tacksmen, instead of being let to the old subtenants, were let to whatever stranger would give the highest offer. On farms so let, the condition of the sub-tenants who were continued on the old footing, appears often to have been miserable in the extreme. These newcome tacksmen or middlemen cared nothing either for chiefs or people; they paid their rent and were determined to squeeze from those under them as large a return as possible for their outlay. In confirmation of these statements, and to show the sad condition of many parts of the Highlands in their state of transition, we quote the following passage from Buchanan’s _Travels in the Hebrides_, referring to about 1780. Even allowing for exaggeration, although there is no reason to believe the writer goes beyond the truth, the picture is almost incredibly deplorable:--