248 FIELD AND FERN. 



jaunty beaver with the twig in his mouth, over the 

 hatter's shop in Dundee ; and we are at last in the 

 Carse- of Gowrie, and exceedingly thankful that we 

 are not a wood pigeon. 



The Carse proper begins at Invergowrie the scene 

 of the first preaching of John Knox some five miles 

 from Dundee, and extends to Kinfauns, where the 

 Tay narrows at about the same distance below Perth. 

 " The braes" run down from the Seidlaw Hills, and 

 the whole of that great wheat plain below was 

 once supposed to be under water, and dotted with 

 divers "Inches 55 or islands. Leases for life and 

 wheat were still stronger traditions, but the former 

 have nearly all merged into nineteen-year ones, and 

 beans, barley, and oats have found their way into its 

 Farmer's Calendar. In 1827 farmers laughed at the 

 notion of permanent grass and turnips. Lord Kin- 

 naird first laid down the former on the braes of 

 Eossie, and Charles Playfair of Inchmichael took 

 his stand on turnips, and fed a bullock as well. 

 Nearly all the turnips are pulled and taken to the 

 straw yards or byres, but the system is gradually 

 creeping in of eating them off the ground with sheep. 

 Still stock is not the forte of the Carse. It was the 

 high prices of '96 which first brought it out, and the 

 glistening furrow and the white crop have been its 

 glory ever since. 



Owing to the absence of hedges, there is rather a 

 bare primitive look about it, but this disappears as 

 you begin to ascend the braes of Eossie, among the 



