FORRES TO FOCHABERS. 97 



so long as they could be got. Crosses and polls have 

 quite superseded them ; but still the general supply 

 falls short of the demand. Farmers complain of the 

 expense of keeping cows, and trust to each other for 

 store beasts to such an extent, that, if a few well-bred 

 ones are found in the market, there is quite a rush at 

 them. Buyers at Elgin cannot echo Colley Gibber's 

 line 



" We triumph most when most the farmer feeds" 



as, before the universal feeding system began, 12 to 

 13 was thought afairprice for a three-year-old, where- 

 as the same class of beast can now give away the year, 

 and command from 17 to .^22, and very good ones 

 still higher, without seeing cake or corn. Some 01 

 these two-year-olds are only kept till Christmas, and 

 the feeders look for ,1 to 25s. a month out of them 

 on turnips and a little cake. 



Five-and-twenty years ago, when a dandy young 

 dealer came to Elgin, and put up at that well-known, 

 dealers' resort, the White Horse, the landlady, a 

 large, motherly woman, thus addressed him : " This 

 is your first visit to Elgin, and you seem a decent 

 young gentleman ; now I'll give you one bit of advice 

 Beware of the Gaulds of Glass and the Cruick- 

 shanJcs of Moray. )} She would have said the same 

 if the shrewd objects of her warning had been sitting 

 in the bar, and no one would have enjoyed it more 

 than themselves. The story merely furnishes a key 

 to the times when two tribes of dealers, numbering 

 about twenty in all, had nearly the whole cattle 



