84 ORMISTOUN'S LETTERS 



XXIX 



19 Feby. 174I. ChARLES, — .... 



I hope 

 you have before this day supplied and made good all the 

 Ditches about the Town with trees, Quicks of each kind etc. 

 not forgetting Rosses Honeysuckle and the like. I wish the 

 Seeds lately sent down may have a quick passage. I fear the 

 onion may be late. If you get ground as I directed it may 

 make up a little — but they would have been better upon 

 ground so managed and sown 1^* Feby. I would have you try 

 to keep some of the Seed till next Spring to be sowed earlier 

 than this can be and in that case you 1 have time to manage 

 the ground and have it in the best order possible in every 

 respect. Keep the Seed carefully neither too dry nor too 

 Moist. I hope your Corrot ground was very well opened to 

 let them meet with .... and striking their roots strongly. 

 Good Crops in any thing pay for the pains taken in good 

 management. Pray take care of the fruit trees both upon the 

 Wall and Espalliers. It will be a pity to have such asortment 

 of proper kinds for our Climate be spoiled or give disappoint- 

 ment for want of pains or a little care. If any thing has been 

 omitted that can be as yet helped a little let it be done as far 

 as it can now. 



. Be sure you neither set 

 eggs for my Wife, or give any to the people upon my Estate 

 but of the very finest large top'd and pure white leg'd hens. 

 We have enough of our own now to propagate a good Breed 

 from of the very best without setting any Eggs of the Hamburgh 

 kind so give none of the Hamburgh to any upon my ground 

 for the have large tops,^ they are smaller fowls and have not 



Cockburn's Letters. Baron Clerk writes in his Diary : ' In the month of 

 December (1720) I lost a very good friend, the Lady Ormistone, my Wife's 

 mother.' 

 1 Read — * For though they have,' etc. 



