8 



The Country Gcntlcinaiis ]\Iaga::vic 



Mr Bicknell describes chevaline as strongly 

 resembling beef, but it becomes darker in 

 colour in a short time after the animal has 

 been killed and cut up. It has a peculiar 

 flavour, which some have compared to that 

 of game and venison, but much depends on 

 the age of the animal, an old horse yielding 

 meat with a more decided taste than a young 

 one. For soup, he avers, no meat answers 

 better, but it requires somewhat longer cook- 

 ing than beef 



Without entering at present into Mr Bick- 

 nell's refutation of the popular objections to 

 hippophagy, which seem to be more senti- 

 mental than practical in their nature, or 



his enumeration of its advantages, we may 

 remark that a project by which an im- 

 IDortant addition might be made to the 

 food of the people deserves at least to 

 meet with serious consideration. Hippo- 

 phagy is a subject in which those who are 

 inclined to be funny may easily fmd ample 

 scope for the exercise of their abilities, but 

 Mr Bicknell is nevertheless right when he 

 says — ■ 



" To-day many will laugh at the bare 

 notion of feeding human beings upon horses, 

 but does it not often happen that those who 

 laugh at novelties to-day are the very first to 

 bless them to-morrow ? " 



THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF SCOTTISH 

 A GRICUL TURE 



THE state of agriculture in a country may 

 always be regarded as a criterion of 

 its civilization. A nation in a state of per- 

 petual disturbance cannot be expected to cul- 

 tivate successfully the arts of peace. 



In the early age of this country, and down 

 indeed to a comparatively recent period, war 

 was the grand national employment. The 

 attention of the people received a direction 

 and the minds even of those not immediately 

 engaged in that exciting game were thus dis- 

 tracted, and could not be brought to bear 

 intensely on any other pursuit. Whatever 

 amount of learning existed was engrossed 

 either in the destructive and unijrofitable 

 profession of arms, or in the more peace- 

 ful vocation of the Church. Agriculture 

 therefore, was abandoned to the ignorant 

 and illiterate ; and this circumstance, per- 

 haps, among other causes, tended to lower 

 its conventional status. Unlike the view taken 

 by the Romans, labouring in the dirty soil 

 was looked upon, if not as a degrading, at 

 least as a subordinate and vulgar occupation, 

 quite unsuitable for a gentleman ; and, indeed, 

 it is only of late that this established impres- 

 sion of inferiority has begim to be dissipated. 



The state of the channels of intercommuni- 

 cation, the primitive and miserably defective 

 condition of the implements of agriculture, 

 together with the absence of all emulation on 

 the subject, necessarily obstructed vigorous 

 action, and begot a desire to labour on the 

 easiest principle. The portion of the farm, 

 or holding, farthest removed from the dwell- 

 ing was abandoned to the cattle. Here Dame 

 Nature was left to herself, without the slightest 

 attempt at intrusion. The animals, also left 

 to themselves, ranged at will, browsed on all 

 they could get, and through the agency of 

 exposure and starvation had not much re- 

 semblance to their unwieldy descendants at 

 our modern cattle shows. 



A small portion of tlie farm contiguous 

 to the dwelling was devoted to the plough. 

 Here the theory and practice of agriculture, 

 as at that time developed, were carried out 

 and practised on the most approved prin- 

 ciples. The ploughing, or " aring," was 

 a great affair. Ten oxen were frequently 

 yoked to an extraordinary looking implement 

 intended for turning over the furrow — the 

 operation demanding, besides the ploughman, 

 a "gadman" with a long pole, such as is used 



