388 TRANSPORTATION. 



heather. The present proprietor of Logan House, 

 W. Robertson, Esq., informs me that he has counted 

 nearly two hundred hives in a season, and that other 

 shepherds, in the neighborhood, undertake similar 

 charges ; among the rest, his own game-keeper, who 

 has accommodation for fifty or sixty families. They 

 remain as long as the heather continues in bloom 

 usually rather more than two months. 'A lover's plaid 

 and a bed of heath,' says the poetical Allen Cun- 

 ningham, fc are favorite topics with the northern muse. 

 When the heather is in bloom, it is worthy of becom- 

 ing, the couch of beauty. A sea of brown blossoms, 

 undulating as far as the eye can reach, and swarm- 

 ing with wild bees, is a fine sight.' Sir Walter Scott, 

 in his ' Pirate,' makes an Orkney husbandman speak 

 of having imported nine skeps of bees, for the im- 

 provement of the country and for turning the heather 

 bloom into wax and honey. 



"These, however, are. ad vantages which very few 

 situations can afford ; probably but few of my read- 

 ers may reside in the neighborhood of heaths, and 

 still fewer may be disposed to incur the trouble and 

 expense of removal. If, therefore, incorporation be 

 desirable in any particular case, I can only recom- 

 mend that attention be paid to supplying the bees 

 with proper food, in a feeding trough, by the assist- 

 ance of which indeed, I should not be afraid of car- 

 rying even a weak stock very safely through the 

 winter and early spring. ' Give your bees,' says Mr. 

 Isaac, ' two harvests in one summer, (alluding to the 



