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One of the Summer Isles, Tanera Mor lies just off Scotland’s north west coast. It was once used as a port by the Vikings and remained inhabited until the 1920s.

It was to this island that the scientist and writer Frank Fraser Darling came in the 1930s, intent on proving that croft farming was a worthwhile pursuit in the 20th Century.

Darling believed that the soils of the Western Highlands had been impoverished by their recent history. The land had become devoted to supporting populations of sheep, deer, and grouse; sheep and deer prevented the possibility of trees re-establishing themselves, and the cultivation of grouse moor frequently caused erosion and destroyed seed stocks. On Tanera Mor, Darling re-nourished the soil with manure, shell sand, and industrial slag, and in just a few years turned it into an impressively productive farm. He wrote an account of his time on Tanera Mor – Island Farm – and was later commissioned by the Scottish Secretary of State to oversee a survey of the West Highlands in their entirety.