The Clearances for Sheep and Deer

More so in the Hebrides than on the mainland, the clearances for sheep, as well as those clearances made for the creation of leisure estates dedicated to hunting and fishing, were not entirely new  affairs.  Both the farming of sheep and the hunting of deer were deep rooted as activities in the Hebrides.   What was different about what we see in the nineteenth century was the sheer scale of their expansion as displacement land uses. The spread of sheep was arguably the most socially disruptive since the scale at which it became viable required the clearance of clusters of touns or townships, including their better land as well as their hill grazings. The discussion explores examples of its disruptive effect. As sheep farming spread, the farming landscape became divided between two contrasting ecologies of production, one based on smallholdings and their the intensive subsistence cropping and the other on largescale commercial sheep production. However, being market driven, the profitability of sheep farming faced phases when prices fell. By the second half of the ninetenth century, when the profits of sheep farming were being squeezed, landowners increasingly saw the creation of leisure estates on their more marginal ground as a preferred land use. The discussion notes the sharp difference between the use of marginal land for deer as opposed to its stocking with sheep, the one devoted to the costly enjoyment of the chase and the other to what was gained by maxmising profit.