THTJRSO TO HELMSDALE. 47 



September. The long gap is very hard to bridge 

 over, and high feeders have sometimes to help out their 

 swedes with strong supplies of corn and cake. No 

 county carries out more consistently the late Mr. Bos- 

 well, of Kingcausie's maxim that " you must feed from 

 the very starting-post/' It is the general practice of 

 the country to rear calves by hand ; but both Sir 

 John and Mr. Henderson consider that a quart 

 from nature's bottle, and taken at the calf s own 

 pleasure, is more valuable than twice the quantity 

 gorged three times a day from a pail. Hence their 

 calves are dropped early, and suckled till the Wick 

 herring fishing begins in July, which gives them from 

 three to four months with their dams. At Wester- 

 seat ten or twelve of the best queys are always put 

 to the bull at fifteen months, and are allowed to 

 suckle their own calves the first season. Half of the 

 remaining cows and three-year-old queys come within 

 the milkmaid's province, and the other half have, if 

 possible, two calves put upon them. In winter they 

 are never let out before nine o'clock in the morning, 

 or allowed to touch a turnip with the frost rime on it. 

 The system of Mr. Henderson (whose nephew at 

 Stemster also stands high as an agriculturist and ex- 

 hibitor of stock) is so good, and so well put in the 

 Irish Farmers' Gazette, that we may well quote it 

 in full : 



"After being -weaned, the calves are turned out on a piece of old grass 

 which is kept for the purpose, but are always housed at night, and vetches 

 or the second cutting of clover given to them, with half a pound each of arti- 

 ficial food, consisting of a mixture of bruised oats and oilcake. This quan- 

 tity of cake and corn is continued until January, turnips and straw having 



