100 ORMISTOUN'S LETTERS 



closure when you feed them. When the Highlanders are to be 

 sold are gone, turn the rest and the two young into the Pidgeon 

 field and give them 2 Stone of hay every night which is enough 

 as there is still good picking of foggage on it, and I don't want 

 to make them fat upon hay. I reckon the Sheep ^ will have good 

 pickings south of the Garden,^ and 2 Stone of hay will keep 

 them every day when the weather is tolerable. When the 

 ground is covered with snow they must have more and for 

 fear of their middling with trees when that is the case, they 

 must be carried up to the back Lee, but let them stay there no 

 longer than it is so, till 1^* March, and then carry them to 

 back Lee altogether, and fain^ that south of the Garden. 

 Carry their Rack over regularly from south to North East of 

 the Hollies South of the Garden. Before 1^* of March you 1 

 have only the Ewes and six Weathers to go up to Back Lee for 

 I would have John Dods sell all the rest of the Weathers in the 

 month of Feby by which time I reckon good will give a price.* 

 Carry on your planting while weather favors as now it does 

 on dry ground. Take up trees may be in the way in case 

 of the Quarries being wrought in Spring and Summer. What 

 of them are above supplying of David's side where gone there 

 or upon the March down between and Belshes, may serve in 

 other places where wanted. Have you wrote for Cucumber 

 Seed or any other from Pringle ? The Dung from ferns I fear 

 may not be good for Hot-Beds. You 1 think of this in time 

 and let me know what contrivance you propose for getting 

 Dung of Straw. Do the pidgeons seem to have suffered much 

 during the Snow. I need not tell you to let all White or that 

 have a large mixture of White and all sandy coloured fly in 

 Spring, Cutting one of their Claws and keeping an account as 



1 We have been always taught that sheep were then considered tender, folded 

 or brought indoors at night, and kept in very small numbers. Ormistoun had 

 certainly very few, but there they remained in the open and were fed on hay from 

 a rack as now. Goats, however, were common in Scotland, as being better 

 able to protect themselves from the foxes, not hunted till long after this date. 

 Even yet there is no pack of hounds north of Tay. 



'^ South of the garden lay the ' Pigeon Field,' often mentioned. It is to be 

 put under wheat, No. XXXI. 



^ See Introduction, p. xxxiii. 



^ Read ' the good ones will fetch a price.' 



