34} FIELD AND FERN. 



work is a very cross-bred one ; and the length of leg 

 and lack of hair, which are too manifest in many of the 

 stock, confirm the truth of Mr. S earth 5 s opinion, that 

 the West Highland bull must be used once more as 

 a corrective. The calves are generally dropped be- 

 tween February and April, and run with their dams 

 till nearly harvest-time, when the men and women 

 have no English thirst for beer, but are quite satis- 

 fied with two quarts of milk a day. 



The native pig is long-legged, coarse, and hard to 

 feed; but the Buccleuch breed and the improved 

 Neapolitans from Sir George Dunbar have wrought 

 a healthy change. Except in one little island, the 

 farmers only keep pigs for their own use, and much of 

 the pork, which is sold and shipped at Kirkwall, is 

 chiefly fed for eight to twelve months by the fisher- 

 men and cottars. The " fishing pork" has always 

 a high yellow colour, when salted, which is not to 

 be wondered at, as the contents of the trough are 

 generally fish offal, " tang" which grows, like bent, 

 high on the rocks sea-weed, and turnips, all boiled 

 together. The very eggs of the hens, which follow 

 the ebb and eat insects among the rocks, catch a 

 peculiar flavour; but the hen- wives say, "It's nae 

 odds it's only an egg for sale. 3 ' 



Very little attention is paid to horse-breeding. 

 When Orcadian garrons were garrons with a mould 

 of their own, the colt used to live under the cottar's 

 roof, and have a green sheaf thrown to it through the 

 large aperture, which made it a joint-tenant in the 



