160 FIELD AND FERN. 



pad," were transported to one English county 

 in 1863. Alford owes much to the cottage archi- 

 tecture of its principal proprietor, Mr. Farquharson, 

 whose mansion, as well as Whitehaugh and Forbes 

 Castle, is a leading object to the right, with the 

 heather hills as the glorious back-ground of all. 



Still we wanted " hoof and horn" figures in our 

 landscape, and a short ride past the well-filled pas- 

 tures of Mr. Reid, a successful grazier and prize- 

 taker, and the forge of Mr. Sorly the " Professor 

 Dick" of the Vale and so along the banks of the 

 Don (midway between which and the Dee, Tillyfour 

 may be said to lie), brought us to DorselPs, the first 

 of Mr. M'Combie's four farms. It belongs to Sir 

 Charles Forbes, of Newe and Edinglassie, and con- 

 sists of about 640 acres equally divided between 

 arable and pasture. Ninety beasts were billeted on 

 it, and when we saw them they had been nearly a 

 month off grass, and had kept up their bloom on tares 

 three parts ripe, which given in this state do not in- 

 duce scouring, and have much finer feeding proper- 

 ties. Green tares make milk rather than beef, and 

 Mr. M'Combie has long abjured them. The first lot 

 were eating their oat-straw and Aberdeen yellows, 

 and the sheddings were judiciously darkened to en- 

 courage digestion and repose. They were all threes- 

 and-fours, and "just good commercial beasts," to 

 adopt " Tillyfour's" favourite term, when he is not 

 especially sweet on anything. Not a two-year-old 

 found a place ; as their fore- quarters are seldom 



