TO HIS GARDENER 83 



care been taken at first. Have you not thinned the Haining 

 and the Wood before Alex** Cokfs by the large trees planted 

 out where the firs were cut and the Shades^ were ? Will more 

 want to be taken out or do you think the above places well 

 enough thinned at least for some years, with what are taken 

 and to be taken this Season ? Dry frosty mornings are proper 

 for turning, mixing and chopping of it well and small that it 

 may spread thin and equally. Will there be enough of it for 

 sprinkling over all the Wheat Enclosure over against it ? I 

 wish to have it well done and laid up dry. Let me know when 

 done and if it is well rotted and in good order. The fames ^ 

 should be carried part to the Town and part to the House and 

 Stacked up at both places as last year and as dry as possible 

 What of them are not dry should be put to a new Dunghill 

 of this year to rot with it and to be mixed next Summer in 

 it. I hope the tall trees designed to be planted this year shall 

 be in the ground by the time this gets to you and that you 

 are in hand with the hedges. I wish the new and supplying 

 of old that ^ go on apace that we may have no more planting 

 till end of Jan''^ when the days begin to lengthen. How does 

 the Nursery thrive in the Hay Yard ? Give me particular 

 answers to each thing above. The nights are now long and 

 you may write each night a part, till you finish full answers to 

 every thing and also what else occurs. Have you got sloes and 

 Briers from Cramond ?'^ I have wrote to Lowther for Garden 

 Seeds and shall send them and Nursery Seeds together. 



6*^ Novr. 1742. 



This was wrote in the forenoon. About 3 o'clock we had 

 Thunder Ligtning and a storm of hail. 



1 See note, p. 87. 



2 Ferns, generally brackens, a very scarce plant now in East Lothian. 



2 Should be omitted. Evidently due to anticipation of the following * that.' 

 * Anne, sister of the writer, ' married Sir John Inglis of Cramond, Post- 

 master-General for Scotland.' — Cockburn-Hood's House of Cockburn. The 

 family connections here were very complicated. Lady Ormiston, Adam Cock- 

 burn's second wife (mar. 1690, d. 1720), had for first husband Sir John Inglis, 

 first baronet of Cramond (d. 1688). Janet Inglis, his third daughter, married 

 Sir John Clerk of Penicuik (1709). She is the 'Niece Clerk' of Mrs. Patrick 



