216 FIELD AND FERN. 



Vale, but they generally belong to dealers. In the 

 "Shire of Angus" tares and turnips have increased 

 of late years to an immense extent, and have quite 

 taken the place of bare fallows. Potatoes nourish all 

 the way from Old Montrose to Perth. Regents 

 command a higher price than Rocks ; but the crop of 

 1863 was so tremendous, amounting in some districts 

 to ten tons the imperial acre, that they had almost 

 to be given away, and no one got more than a pound 

 per ton. Hence the farmer was just as well off during 

 the great disease of ; 46. Six tons are a fair average 

 crop, and 3 the price of ordinary seasons. The 

 potatoes thrive best on the black-loam edges of the 

 Kinnaird valley, and beans on the strong clay of 

 the flat. The valley was at this date the northern 

 limit of the seven or eight steam ploughs of Scot- 

 land, and the very first that crossed the Border, to 

 the order of a private purchaser, came in '61 to Mr. 

 Lyall's farm at Old Montrose. 



This farm-steading has a very warm, English look 

 about it, with its sycamores and Spanish chesnuts, 

 and its old garden walls ; and it was refreshing to see 

 "a bit of Bates" at last in "Little Go" by Fourth 

 Duke of Oxford, who was purchased from Earl 

 Airlie. The herd began with " Southesk, " a 

 Bates bull, one of the only four calves which 

 Second Duke of Northumberland left, when Cap- 

 tain Barclay hired him in '41 for a season. 

 Prince Ernest by The Baron (now Bowley's Little 

 Go) did more in his day, and claims Leonora 



