42 FIELD AND FERN. 



Farm, which was once held by a son of the cele- 

 brated Patrick Sellar, and extends some twenty by 

 eight miles from the west coast to Strath Halli- 

 dale. The late Mr. Gunn, of Glendhu, pursued the 

 same plan at Greenland, a farm of Mr. Traill's, who 

 has been the knight of the shire for nearly a third of 

 a century, and whom we blessed most heartily for a 

 little shade, as we made the turn near Castle Hill. 

 Weary as we were of the sea, there was no resisting 

 the graceful wave curl of the Dunnet Head, on whose 

 sandy links, St. Mary's Mass, once the great fair 

 for Orkney cows, woollens, and garrons, is still 

 held in August. There was a day when its garron 

 average touched 14 ; but even " Swifty Stewart" is 

 not found there now, and it is at Georgemas, Kildary 

 Great Fair, and Bonar Bridge that he goes in for 

 the colts and the horse ponies under fourteen hands, 

 which he takes down thrice a year to his Banffshire 

 and Moray shire customers. 



At the Georgemas tryst in 1863-64 Mr. Traill 

 made the highest figure for his half-bred hoggs. The 

 scene both of it and the Caithness county show is a 

 piece of enclosed hill ground five miles from Thurso, 

 on the high road to Wick, and the tryst is held on 

 the Tuesday before the Character Fair at Inverness. 

 Buyers of cattle, sheep, and wool crowd the hill that 

 day from every part of Scotland, and the North of 

 England as well; and since their secretary, Mr. 

 Geddes, of Orbliston, bore his testimony so decidedly 

 before the Morayshire Farmers' Club as to the supe- 



