THE COUNTIES OF FOEFAR AND KINCARDINE. 79 



dee increased from £8261 in 1858-59 to £12,079 in 1876-77. 

 Proceeding nortliwards from Dundee we enter the parish of 

 Mains and Strathmartine, which had a rental of £13,982 in 

 1856, now increased to no less than £25,996. The valuation in 

 1683 was £3113 Scots money. The chief estates in this parish 

 are — Baldovan, owned by Sir John Ogilvy, Bart. ; Balmuir, 

 belonging to Mr James Webster ; and Douglas, the property 

 of the Countess of Home. On each of these there are several 

 large well-managed farms. The principal holding on the 

 latter is the Barns of Claverhouse, which has just passed to 

 the third generation of the Bell family, a family that has for 

 over half-a-century occupied a leading position among Forfar- 

 shire farmers. Mr George Bell removed lately to the adjoining 

 farm of Mains of Fintray, leaving in the Barns his only son 

 William, w^ho continues to manage it with all the energy and 

 skill wliich his father and grandfather so successfully applied to 

 it. Mr George Bell and his father effected great improvement 

 on the farm by draining, road-making, fencing, building, and in 

 other respects, the former having expended no less than £2000 

 on these improvements during his tenancy. Part of a new 

 steading w^as erected in 1854, while the remaining portion was 

 renewed in 1874-75, making it one of the most commodious 

 and convenient in the district. The greater part of the farm 

 lies low, by the side of the Dighty Water, and there the soil is 

 a clayey loam of a stiffish tendency. On the rising ground on 

 the north the soil is thin sharp loam. On the Plains of Pintray 

 the soil is stiffer, but under the careful and liberal treatment it 

 receives it yields well. It is rented at about £4, 10s. per acre, 

 gives an average of about 4 quarters of wheat per acre, weighing 

 62 lbs., and about 5 J quarters of barley and oats, the former 

 weighing 54 lbs. and the latter 40 to 44 lbs. per bushel. On 

 the north-east of Mains and Strathmartine lies the parish of 

 Murroes, which contains some very fine and also some very poor 

 land. Overlooking the valley of the Dighty Water; and com- 

 manding a magnificent view of the German Ocean, the coast of 

 Fife, the Firth of Tay, and the suburbs of P)undee, stands the 

 old Castle of Powrie. This hoary ruin adjoins the beautifully 

 situated dwelling-house and steading of the farm of Powrie, 

 occupied by Mr Thomas Smith, whose choice herd of polled 

 cattle and e(iually well-bred Hock of English Leicester sheep, 

 give his farm an interest and importance rivalled by only a few 

 in the county. Of the herd and llock more anon. The steading 

 on I'owrie was erected in 1806, when the late Mr Smith, father 

 of the present tenant and a man in many ways in advance of 

 his times, entered the farm. It is in the form of a square, com- 

 modious and substantial. Part of this farm also lies down on 

 the Dighty valley, and there the soil is pretty strong loam. The 



