Dr Lachlan turned Rùm into a sheep farm, with its population replaced by some 8,000 blackface sheep. So total had been the clearance that he was forced to import families to the island to act as shepherds. However, the prosperity elsewhere in the UK led to traditional staples like mutton and wool being of less interest to consumers, and their price fell. In 1839 the price of mutton fell dramatically, bankrupting Dr Lachlan, and forcing him to leave. Ironically, in the words of one of the emigrees, Dr Lachlan, ""the Curse and Scourge of the Highland Crofters"" was now ""much worse off than the comfortable people he turned out of Rùm 13 years previously"".