xl ORMISTOUN'S LETTERS 



mistaken notion of raiseing ten cabbages and not disposing 

 of them tho^ in danger of rotting, unless he gets the price 

 of 30 for them, you '1 be in the right, provided nobody will 

 raise cabbages but yourself, but this wont hold long, for the 

 dearer you keep your price the more others will be encouraged 

 to take up the business, which is the constant consequence of 

 those foolish, narrow, low notions.'' Here we have, in a nut- 

 shell, the soundest and most enduring business creed. 



He must have been a considerable employer of labour. 

 Directly, by his example and his favourable leases, he stimu- 

 lated the farmers, and by his building and public works he 

 made village life more comfortable. He secured for the 

 community a trained joiner and trained gardeners. In his 

 own dealings he is upright. His grazing must have been 

 a novelty and his advertisements quite modern. These he 

 insists on keeping to, not always realised now, 'making no 

 particular promises about taking care of one man's Horse or 

 the like, for I will have no distinctions, every poor man's 

 horse to have the same fare with the greatest,' a rebuke for 

 ' Blundering as last year about L*^ Oxford's stirks,' evidently 

 a case of favouritism. Indirectly he runs counter to modern 

 social propriety when he encourages Ramsay to set up 'a 

 good publick House.' The type of the time he sketches 

 sarcastically (p. 18) : ' Our comon dirty Hog stays where 

 nothing is to be gott but nasty Barm which we call Tuppenny 

 and by accident ane Oat or pease Cake.' The success of 

 the scheme was not great. In 1743 we find him report- 

 ing the complaint of a member of the club about the malt 

 drink supplied by the Poosie Nancy of Ormiston. ' I suppose,' 

 he says, 'she w^ be glad of more custom, and yet she 

 won't keep drink which w*^ bring her customers.' Evidently 

 he thought the drink traffic ought to be encouraged, but, it 

 must be remembered, with the view of stimulating the market 

 for barley ' in so fine a Barley Country.' 



So far we have seen this remarkable man mainly as most 



