PERTH TO KEIR. 315 



could have stood to the sculptor marks the stable ; 

 but Stella's and Lady BountifuFs heads have been 

 copied by him for the cowhouse, and Forth' s, cut 

 in his calf hood, was over the keystone of the main 

 gateway. A wheat and barley-sheaf crown the win- 

 dows of the granary ; and a brace of reaping-hooks 

 and scythe-stones, crossed, are reserved for the door 

 through which the sheaves are borne to the threshing 

 machine. Mr. Stirling has well acted up to his 

 family motto, " Gang Forward" which once or twice 

 had its place with " Poco d Poco" (Little by little) 

 on the walls; and " Tak Time ere Time be tent" 

 speaks with apt and homely eloquence from the clock- 

 tower. 



The stud of Clydesdales has numbered sixty, but it is 

 kept down at about half-a-hundred, as the colt foals 

 are sold entire, along with Leicester s and shorthorn 

 bull-calves at the annual roup. Some of the neigh- 

 bouring farmers thought Darkie, who was a good win- 

 ner under high-weights at The Loo and EglintonPark, 

 too high-bred for their common mares, and therefore 

 Mr. Stirling bought a pure-bred Suffolk sire ; but 

 the chesnut "bare legs" made no way. They said 

 that the sort had too much roundness of bone, and a 

 lack of freedom of step, and that the mists affected 

 their eye-sight. The national feeling was also against 

 them on the point of not being such good travellers, 

 either as regards pace or the power of long-fasting ; 

 and the fifth Lord Jersey, who had tried large 

 teams of both breeds at Middleton in Oxfordshire, 



