28 ORMISTOUN'S LETTERS 



design larger than what you can bring in order for two or 

 three years. Trench and ridge well up against Winter and 

 you can't begin too soon in laying mix't stuff into heaps in order 

 to turn and sweeten soil for use ag* planting time. Want of 

 dung will be another excuse. We are at little pains in taking 

 care of keeping together or right managing of what we have or 

 might make. We also starve our cattle by which we lose the 

 half of the work our horses could do, and a great deal of the 

 milk our cows would give and lose the dung they would make.^ 

 A horse will do a great deal of work if well fed and fairly 

 dealt by, and a Cow would pay in milk for the difference. 

 Such as you who keep only one Cow, should sell off your Cow 

 when she fails in her milk and buy in one new calved. Feed 

 well which your Turnips and other things can help you to do, 

 and so have always a Cow in full milk, which would pay. A 

 little help of Hay from your Walk ^ would be of service both to 

 horse and Cow in Winter, and a feeding of corn would enable 

 your horse to go out with a load to a market and carry your 

 coals, go in a plough or do any other thing in an afternoon, if 

 our men were not lazy and slow and our horses starved, by 

 which they make a day's work of what might be done of a 

 morning. Every thing that can serve in any way for bettering 

 the ground should be taken care of and the turning up our 

 ground for sweetening and freshening would much help its 

 answering. You may have heard Cuff ^ say, he took care to 

 have something for the market every day the year round. I 

 am sure you may have something for the market of Eden: or 

 other places about, several times every week the year round, 

 besides answering demands at home. But you must exert 

 yourself in raising and afterwards in disposing of what you raise. 

 Get over difficulties which by a little thought and activity in 

 executing, you '1 find are not insurmountable, and never grudge 

 laying out a penny when you see a probability of 2d. returning. 

 By the course of nature your father can't live long, prepare 



^ Defoe writes to Harley, Earl of Oxford, on the same sensible lines. 



2 The baulks or narrow strips between the rigs of arable land, which were so 

 numerous when the township was divided up among the crofters in the run-rig. 

 From this passage the horse rather than the ox was used for labour. 



^ The market gardener at Tottenham, where Bell had been a learner. 



