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Many families, of which the laird was often the best farmer in the district and his own factor, have disappeared. The fine houses, with their parks and shootings, are let to strangers, who come for a few weeks or months, and then leave it in charge of a caretaker. Before this recent development, the "family" lived all the year round upon the land; they spent their income chiefly in wages to the country people. Where once forty or fifty people were employed all the year, there are now but three or four. The big house with shuttered windows and weed-grown walks, is a distressing and saddening spectacle.