Their method of making butter being curious, I have thought proper to describe it. They fill their churn with milk, which they churn in the usual way till the oleaginous part be made to separate from the serum. They then throw in some red-hot stones, and continue churning till the butter float at the top, when it is taken out, and carefully washed and salted. The butter-milk being boiled, what floats on the surface is used as food, and the residue is esteemed an excellent beverage; and when kept over winter, they reckon it an efficacious antidote against the bad effects arising from the constant use of fish.
Their swine are of a remarkably small size, short-backed, and easily fed. A pig ready for the spit is often sold at two shillings.
Their sheep (the most profitable part of their live stock, and which are calculated to be from 110,000 to 120,000 in number,) are likewise of very small growth. One between three and five years old, sells from four to seven shillings.
In winter, especially when the ground is covered with snow, these animals feed on the sea-weed, with which the shores are covered. This they resort to by a kind of natural instinct; for as soon as the tide begins to ebb, the whole body of them (although feeding several miles off) make for the seashores, where they stay as long as the tide will permit them, and then return to their usual walks.
The wool of these sheep is remarkably soft and fine; but there is so much diversity in its quality, that some stockings at L.2, 2s. per pair, and others at sixpence, are made from it. The common price of tolerable good stockings is from five shillings to half-a-guinea per pair. They are all knitted. The very fine ones, which are esteemed superior in value to silk, will pass through a small finger ring. The different colours of the wool are white, black, light grey, and sometimes a russet. The sheep are never shorn; but early in June the wool is pulled off without injuring the animal. In this process care is taken to leave the long hairs which grow amongst the wool, by which means the young wool is sheltered, and the animal kept warm and comfortable.[4]
The people of these isles have attempted to introduce a larger breed of sheep from Britain, but the inclemency of the climate rendered their labours abortive. This verifies what the famous Scottish historian says of these Isles:
“Adeo fera, ut nullum animal nisi illic natum ferat.” Buch. lib. 1. § 50.
Here are neither hares nor foxes, though rabbits are plenty; the skins of which are sold at about half-a-guinea per dozen. The flesh of these is nothing inferior to those of Britain, though they are somewhat less in size.
The other wild quadrupeds which have reached these islands, are the otter, brown rat, common mouse, fetid shrew, and bat.