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class of labourers, are widows, unmarried females, and thechildren of married hired servants, and day-labourers, wholive in cottages upon the farm, and where farms are not fur-nished with cottages for the accommodation of people of thisdescription, they are procured from neighbouring towns andvillages. But as few farms in Scotland are situated so neartowns or villages, as to enable the farmer to avail himselfof their population, it is of the greatest importance,therefore, to have a sufficient number of cottages upon everyfarm, and to give a preference to married servants rather thanto those in a single state *. In fact, the supply of labourersis found to be regulated entirely upon this principle, through-out the whole kingdom, and their plenty or scarcity in anydistrict, can easily be known, by turning to that part ofthis chapter, where the different descriptions of farm-servantshave been detailed.

* Both in Berwickshire and in Roxburghshire, farmers who cultivate a con-siderable extent of ground, and even those possessed of moderate sized farms,rarely keep above one unmarried servant: all the rest are married, and live incottages on the farm. This plan is earnestly recommended to the adoption ofother arable districts, as the assistance of the families of married servants is ofsuch essential advantage to the arable farmer, and, at the same time, promotesthe useful population of the country.

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