86 FIELD AND FERN. 



lots of ewes or wedders consist of from 1,200 to 

 1.800 each, and those not disposed of are generally 

 consigned to salesmen for Falkirk, where some of 

 the ewe lots arrive not as cast, but as "double- 

 milled/^ after having been kept a year, and bringing 

 up a half-bred lamb in Caithness or Moray shire. 

 Some salesmen will ff gie the grip" for as many as 

 15,000 ; and Gibbons and Lamb of Liverpol, Wall- 

 bank of Keighley, Ruddick of Berwick, Nelson, Pat- 

 tison and Bowstead of Cumberland, Murray and Swan 

 of Edinburgh, Martindale of Manchester, Young of 

 Penrith, and others from Dumfriesshire and Wig- 

 townshire do a very large business. Many farmers 

 also go with commissions from neighbours, and buy" 

 and divide a large lot. At one time there were 

 more black-faces in the market, and the brothers 

 Scott have taken as many as four thousand of 

 them, pretty nearly from one farm. Twenty thou- 

 sand cast ewes and wedders with the Scott brand on 

 them would be travelling south in September and 

 October, by Kingussie and Dalwhinnie, to the 

 Lothians, Cumberland, Dumfriesshire, and the two 

 Falkirks. The brothers would have nearly as many 

 wedders and wedder hoggs on turnips, many of them 

 bred on their own Boss -shire farms, at Fisherfield 

 and Strathnalig, and in the spring of each year the 

 wedders would be told off to the different markets, 

 and the hoggs go back to the farms. Getting tur- 

 nips for them was sometimes no easy task, and once 

 they were obliged to purchase more than ten score 



