ON THE CHEVIOT BREED OF SHEEP. Ill 



vlesceiiJed ; any tradition as to their iin])ortation into the 

 country being utterly unsupported by anything that is known. 

 One very notable fact is that, in a reference to the agriculture 

 carried on by the monks in the middle ages, Cosmo Innes, in 

 liis history of that period, devotes an entire paragrapli Uj a 

 description of the jjractice of the sheep-farming churchmen of 

 Teviotdale. "The monasteries of Teviotdale," this writer says, 

 " had necessarily a great extent of pasture land, and the minuter 

 and careful arrangement of folds in their mountain ])astures for 

 sheep, and byres for cattle, and of lodges or temporary l)uildings 

 for their keepers and attendants, shows that they ]:>aid the 

 greatest attention to this part of their extensive fanning." 

 " l*)Ut," it is added, and the remark is suggestive of the lead 

 wliicli the Church then took in every matter, " the immense 

 number and variety of agricultural transactions, the frequent 

 transference of lands, the disputes and settlements regarding 

 marches, the precision and evident care of leases, the very 

 occurrence so frequently of names of field di\'isions and of 

 boundaries between farms settled by King David in person, 

 shows an enlightened attention and interest in agricultural 

 affairs that seem to have issued from the monastery, and reached 

 the whole population during the period of natural peace and 

 good government which was so rudely terminated by the wars 

 of the succession." 



Just when this pleasant stage had been reached, and when 

 most likely improvements were in proga-ess whicli, had they 

 l)e'en followed out, would have intlueuced considerably the 

 after-history of Border stock breeding, the country was plunged 

 into troubles and disorders, and people, deprived of security of 

 possession, rapidly fell back into that comparatively degraded 

 state out of wluch they had been elevated. From the time of 

 Baniiockburn till the Act of Union was passed at the beginning 

 of the eighteenth century, the minds of Borderers were occupied 

 only with schemes of depredation. One Border raid folliAved 

 another as soon as plans of inroad or revenge could Ije matured ; 

 and as the live-stock ])ossessions of the men on both sides of 

 the boundary-line were often on the move from one stronghold 

 to another, it was of course impossible that more could be done 

 than keep the breed in existence. Of sheep there appears, 

 indeed, to have l^een but a small number left in the district, 

 U)V, in the plunder that one Borderer made from another, it is 

 seldom that flocks are heard of, — the booty almost always con- 

 sisted of herds of cattle, which were driven before the horsemen. 

 At the l)e4^inning of the seventeenth century, on the union of 

 the two crowns, some slight improvement took place, as appears 

 frcnn Lord Napier's " Treatise on Practical Store-Farming." It 

 was not, however, till a feeling of security was restored by the 



