24 FIELD AND FERN. 



ber, and the pasture had made good head by Twelfth- 

 day. Winter comes with the nip of March, and 

 itence the hardy trees which make their effort before 

 May have invariably failed. The white-skinned 

 and the mountain ash, the alder, the bay- 

 leaved willow, the plane, and (where the land 

 is deep) the elm, have all struggled through, 

 but it has been with pain and sorrow. The varied 

 music, which connoisseurs profess to find in their 

 rustle, is drowned in one thorough bass, when the 

 west wind sweeps the chords, and "shaves the twigs as 

 with a bill-hook." Where the vapour of the sea-spray 

 floats through the air, its presence is marked by the 

 redness of the larches and the greenness of the pas- 

 tures, which are said to find in it an antidote to 

 sheep-rot. The grass of the South isles is not equal 

 to that of the North ; but the hay season is pretty 

 universal in July and August, and the harvest-homes 

 at the end of October usher in a long, calm back-end, 

 or " Peerie Summer." In old days, black oats or 

 grey followed bere, varied occasionally with pota- 

 toes, and then white gowans and weeds to rest ; but 

 modern Orkney farmers are wide awake. The five- 

 shift is pretty universal, and wheat can be got to 

 631bs. and 44 bushels to the acre. Perhaps the most 

 tenacious heritor is the ox-eyed daisy, which defies 

 eradication, and sometimes covers a field like snow. 



There are two Markets in Shapinsey, summer and 

 winter, and the Agricultural Club meets on the school 

 "brae to give prizes for stock, poultry, butter, cheese, 



