150 FIELD AND FERN. 



brought in and tied up. There are no yards here 

 for yearlings or anything, as the bleak uplands have 

 something more than "a kind of starved look/ 7 

 while the cold blasts come whistling from the Ger- 

 man Ocean. 



About forty are fed off every year ; and Mr. Mar 

 tin. of Aberdeen, who bought both the roan and red 

 Aberdeen Cup winners of 1862-63, is one of the 

 principal customers. A fine red cow, The Queen, 

 was one of the daintiest quenes of the herd, and 

 the Darlington roan's dam had a very deep -fleshed 

 little " prize-fighter" by its side, to which good colour 

 only had been denied. The herd was in three or 

 four different detachments, principally according to 

 age, and it was quite novel to hear different beasts 

 told off as they came up the brae. It was " half- 

 sister to Darlington ox;" " dam of red ox," " half- 

 sister to red ox," " half-brother to red ox," and so on 

 through pages of bullock history. 



Mr. Martin's stud was in a long barn at Mr. 

 Eiddes's of Wateridge Muir, not many miles away. 

 There were the red Tarty ox which had just won the 

 Cup at Aberdeen, and a great grey Shorthorn- West 

 Highland ox which stood forcing till the Christmas 

 of the next year, and then took the Liverpool Cup, as 

 the best fat beast. We fancied him more than the red, 

 and well might Peter Allardice, their trainer, observe 

 that " he fills a string well." Still, amid all these 

 good ones, Peter could not forget the Esselmont 

 roan, and styled him " the dashest ox I ever saw. 33 



