Series 4 > Papers on Sutherland Estate Management 1802-1816 > Volume 9

214 SUTHERLAND ESTATE MANAGEMENT: CORRESPONDENCE
adjourned County meeting and a Presbytery about Kirk and Manse
repairs.
As Mr William MacKenzie is now in London you shoud consult
with him as to this punctuality in the payment of rents. He knows the
State of the Country well and can tell you if my notions are right or
wrong. In case absolute punctuality is required Mr Sellar shoud be
immediately instructed to enforce it and I am sure he will act up to
the orders given, and for Gods sake do not be directed by or take it
amiss that I give an opinion to the contrary.
Mr Grant says it will be a Month from this day before the whole
accounts of the Season can be completely finished and sent.
Marchioness of Stafford to Marquis of Stafford
Dunrobin Castle, 4 July 1814
rainy morning, fine evening
We went to Brora this morning. In going there we saw first in the
farm a very fine field ofWheat where the Flax was last year, then
one or two other fields in remarkably good order. The new greive,
Young says, declares war upon weeds. There is in fact not one to be
seen, and the fields really look in uncommonly good order. That
where the lower Pictish Tower stands is drilled for turnips, the
next above the Echo has a very good crop of Hay.1 The Clayside
plantation is surprizing from the strength and appearance of the new
planting.
We proceeded to see the new Coal at Uppat. It is in a little sort of
cave near the old Strathsteven cave, and I suppose upon a Level with
it, and should conjecture (as far as one can conjecture in so large a
field, but where there probably are faults) that it is the same vein
which is now working at Brora, the more probably as there is the
same sort of stony substance for about 6 or 7 Inches in depth found
in the middle of that vein, as well as in the Brora one. You will
recollect that either Telford or Farey2 (perhaps both) said there was
such a substance which was common enough in veins and which
1 The Pictish Tower is Cam Liath broch, between Dunrobin Castle and Strathsteven.
The Echo is unidentifiable.
2 There is no written report by Telford on the Brora coal; for John Farcy’s visit to
Sutherland in 1812, see above, i, p. Ixiii.