104 FIELD AND FERN. 



We remember an old land-valuer boasting that if 

 you only sent him a pot of earth he could tell " you 

 for a certainty whether it grew good carrots, and 

 guess all the rest." The monks seem to have had 

 quite as high tasting powers, as Elgin and Kinloss 

 Abbeys command a rich wheat district, and Pluskar- 

 den is on the verge of Alves, that very Goshen of 

 parishes. Mr. M'Combie followed in their footsteps, 

 not with sandalled shoon, but with plaid and trusty 

 staff; and in John Hutcheon's day he bought seventy 

 to a hundred beasts, mostly fours and fives, out of Kin- 

 loss Abbey Yard for thirteen years' running as sure as 

 spring came round. He and the old man knew each 

 other well ; and as the latter always opened with an 

 ample margin in hand, it took, on an average, three 

 good days to bring them together. They would re- 

 tire to sleep on it, and meet in the morning, not a 

 shilling nearer ; but no other buyer interfered, and 

 they always settled it at last. 



The land after leaving Torres seemed to be prin- 

 cipally a vast turnip expanse. Mr. Ferguson, of 

 Grange, is not far from Kinloss Abbey, and is known 

 as perhaps the largest buyer and feeder of lambs in 

 Morayshire. He will buy fully twelve hundred, sell 

 the tops as hoggs, and keep on the rest for a time. 

 His neighbour, Mr. Garden of Netherton, feeds from 

 30 to 40 beasts ; but among them last year were the 

 best pairs of two and three-year-old polled bullocks in 

 the county. Then a delightful ride through the Quarry 

 Woods for a mile and a-half brought us from the Earl 



