14 AGEICULTUEE. 



felt how much he ornaments and animates the scene, you 

 will not admire and love him as we do. The first merits 

 of a West Highlander are his hardihood and his great 

 industry. Whether you order him to find his living on a 

 black moor in summer, or to gather up the crumbs which 

 have fallen from the rich man's table on your feeding pas- 

 tures in winter, he is equally prosperous and cheerful. In 

 storms or severe weather you never see him setting up his 

 back and shivering under a hedge or wall ; he is constantly 

 working for his bread. We knew a grazier who always 

 cleaned up his pastures in winter with West Highlanders, 

 and who objected on principle to giving them any fodder, 

 even when there were several inches of snow on the 

 ground, saying that it only taught them idle habits. Some 

 years back we saw annually at Falkirk a lot of West High- 

 land bullocks bred by Mr. Stuart of Harris, and brought 

 by him to that market. They were the best lot of one 

 man's breeding which we ever saw; Mr. Stuart kindly 

 gave us their history. From the day of their birth they 

 had never been under cover ; neither they nor their mo- 

 thers had ever received a scrap of food from the hand of 

 man. In the summer they roamed through the mountain 

 glens. The Atlantic storms throw up on the west of 

 Harris long ranges of sand-hillocks, which become fixed 

 by the roots of a coarse grass, to which, if we remember 

 right, Mr. Stuart gave the name of Bent. We believe it 

 is the same grass which such of our readers as visit Paris 

 may see extensively planted on the railway sides between 

 Boulogne and Abbeville for the purpose of fixing the 

 drifting sands. Mr. Stuart's herd, when driven from the 

 hills by storms and snow, retreated to these sand-hills, 

 and found from them all that they ever received of 

 shelter and food. Both summer and winter they were 

 almost independent of man. The bullocks began their 

 southern travel by a sailing voyage of 60 miles over a very 

 uncertain sea ; they then walked about 220 miles to Fal- 

 kirk, mostly over open moors, on which they bivouacked at 



