THE SEAFIELD ESTATES,

Otago Witness, Issue 2356, 20 April 1899, Page 46

THE SEAFIELD ESTATES,

We have had placed at our disposal a copy of the Grantown (Speyside) Supplement, containing the results of an interesting inquiry made by a representative of the paper into the condition of the Abernethy tenantry. It scem.j that the parish has 'become almost demoralised, and the Dowager Duchess of Seafield has issued a circular in which she says she is deeply grieved at the evil reputation Abernethy has gained, and appealing to the tenantry to use every effort to put things to rights and try to bripg the status of the parish on to eomething like a level with that of its neighbours. The inquiries made by the Supplement representative disclosed anything but a desirable state of affairs. It was shown that whole families in recent years had been cleared out of crofts when the deer forest was formed. Ten square miles of th« parish is fenced in for deer. Rents had formerly been high, <sufc they were now on a much better footing. As showing the reduction in population, jt was mentioned that while 45 years ago the then Earl of Seafielcl could turn out in Abernethy over 100 kilted ihen at 24 hours' notice, there are now not half a dozen kilts in the district. At present the small farms are being continually added to the larger ones, as this saves 'trouble in collecting rents, the numbei of holdings thus cleared being considerably over 100, numbering from 500 to 600 occupants. The army gets no recruits now, and even farm labour has to be imported from adjacent districts. The homes are so /wretched that the men spend all their time at the hotel bar, there being no other place for them to meet. For want of suitable houses the young men remain unmarried, and the illegitimate births number ono in four. Such is the wretched state of affairs depicted by the correspondent, and no wonder discontent prevails.