Chieftains who had become improving landlords had found livestock-grazing (generally sheep, sometimes cattle) the most remunerative form of agriculture; to accommodate this they had moved their tenants to coastal townships where they hoped valuable industries could be developed and established an extensive crofting system (see Highland Clearances).

Croft sizes were set low to encourage the tenantry to participate in the industry (e.g. fishing, kelp [b]) the landlord wished to develop.

Crops failed in about three-quarters of the crofting region, putting a population of about 200,000 at risk; the following winter was especially cold and snowy and the death rate rose significantly.

The government was restricted by the common attitudes of the middle of the 19th century: minimal intervention, and there was deep concern to avoid upsetting the free play of normal market forces.

Despite the constraints of these ruling economic theories, Trevelyan made completely clear that "the people cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to starve" in a letter of September 1846.

[c] Others, typically among the remaining hereditary landowners, were in perilous financial conditions and struggled to meet expectations, some of them being in denial about their lack of ability to do so.

By mid-1847, even the notorious Colonel John Gordon of Cluny was acknowledged by the senior relief officer, Sir Edward Pine Coffin, as having improved beyond the worst class of landlord.

However, the purpose in establishing the depots was to prevent spiralling prices due to local shortages - thereby demonstrating the dilemma in choosing practical, necessary measures that fitted with the contemporary views on political economy.

[6] The prompt response of the Lowlands (and the much smaller size of the problem) meant that famine relief programmes were better organised and more effective in Scotland than in Ireland.

At once autocratic and bureaucratic, the Board became a gradgrind employer, paying rock bottom wages in kind for hard labour on public works...

This requirement was not rigorously enforced at first, but potato crops failed to recover to pre-blight levels, and the Central Board became concerned that long-term recipients of the rations would become "pauperised".

This "destitution test", harsh in itself, implemented by Victorian bureaucracy, and policed by officials used to enforcing naval discipline, engendered considerable hostility.

When the kelp industry had collapsed they surely would have sought work elsewhere had they not been separated by habits and language from the majority of the population and regarded the rest of the kingdom as a foreign country.

No doubt, suffering must have been endured, the pressure upon all classes must have been severe: but to the latest date to which intelligence has been received, there is no sufficient reason to believe that one life has yet been lost in consequence of the cessation of eleemosynary reliefConsequently, he concluded that the programme of extensive relief to the able-bodied poor, although well-intentioned, had ultimately been deleterious.

However, the areas less badly affected by destitution were not those where these schemes had been attempted, but rather those where communications with the rest of the country were relatively good, where there was greater acceptance of seasonal migration in search of work, or where there were significant other sources of income.

As late as 1854, the complete loss of the potato crop was being reported for local blackspots such as the Hebridean communities of Barra and Harris (where the blight was said to be more prevalent than in 1846).

On Lewis, Sir James Matheson had spent £33,000 in three years to support his tenants; in six of the next thirty years he had to provide similar help, but on a much smaller scale and with a greater likelihood of being repaid: Most landlords worked to lessen the effects of the famine on their crofting tenants: forgoing rent, donating to the relief committees, running their own parallel relief operations, funding the introduction of new crops and industries or reviving old ones.

[citation needed] However, as it became apparent that crofting at current population levels had long-term problems, they feared that the government would impose some system of permanent relief charged against their estates (either directly or through Poor Law reform).

They instead sought to solve or remove the problems by inducing their poorer tenants to migrate to the Lowlands[citation needed], or emigrate overseas.

His factor in the Scourie district (Evander McIver) worked both to persuade the landlord to subsidise emigration and to encourage the tenantry to accept the assistance offered.

Whilst the second Duke of Sutherland effectively forbade eviction to achieve this, the influence of favourable reports from previous emigrants, coupled with the level of destitution in the community acted as a stimulus for people to leave.

[3]: 426 On Lewis, the large-scale "voluntary" emigration to Canada from the Matheson estates was encouraged by both the carrot (promises of good treatment of volunteers) and the stick (reminders to tenants of their rent arrears and the possibility of their eviction).

These schemes met with little cooperation (and in some cases active opposition) from the islanders, and came to nothing: by 1850 Gordon had owned Barra for ten years, and seen no return for his money.

[22] He replied to criticism by letting it be known that, prior to the evictions, he had cooperated with the Relief Committee, given them £1000, and spent nearly £2300 in relieving distress in the island;[22] he declared himself willing to lay out more money if anyone could show him where it might effect lasting good.

The bare authority of Colonel Gordon, in a letter to the ground-officer, was that on which their houses were pulled about their ears, to make way for the large farmers to whom their crofts were let[25]".

[28] Gordon chartered ships and offered free passage to Quebec to his tenants in Barra and South Uist (and to those recently evicted).

[32] They arrived in Quebec unable to support themselves and without any means of paying for passage to Upper Canada (where they might be able to find work); the Canadian authorities had to lay out £670 to get them there.

The vice-president of a Scottish benevolent society in Hamilton, Upper Canada, wrote: "the emigrants from Barra and South Uist, amounting to between two and three thousand were the most destitute I ever saw coming to this country.

[37] McNeill's report did not endorse the argument of papers such as the Scotsman that the destitution was due to the inherent laziness of the Gael (which contrasted unfavourably with the estimable traits of the 'Teutonic' Lowland Scots who read the Scotsman), but his comments on the cultural barriers which had hindered timely migration from the congested areas mirrored and reinforced a prevalent assumption that Gaelic culture and language was an unnecessary brake on progress and the long-term happiness and prosperity of the Gaelic-speaking areas could best be secured by making them English-speaking.

[3] In the 1880s, the technical issue of how to avoid future famines or seasons of destitution in the Highlands became submerged in the political question of how to address the grievances of crofters and cottars (agricultural labourers without land).