HERD NOTICES 141 



of the elderly world about Mains of Cambus, once 

 held in strenuously improving tenancy by Mr John 

 Moubray from the Abercromby family. 



The buildings are of another age. Doors, lintels, 

 and roofing at the steading are dourly holding out 

 against Time. An oaken "kist" in the stable must 

 be hundreds of years old. A critic steeped in 

 modernity fancies that far - off leisure and homely 

 substantiality are somewhere in the soul of things. 

 Yet on this spot one man at least lived strenuous 

 days and obtained victories over the forces of nature. 

 It was here, nearly one hundred years ago, that Mr 

 John Moubray began those elaborate experiments 

 in drainage to which reference has already been 

 made (p. 56). Mains of Cambus has an extent 

 of over 350 acres. Fully two-thirds of it is repre- 

 sentative Carse clay, the remainder being sharp 

 friable " dryfield " land at an elevation of 200 to 

 250 feet above the river-side flats. It is at New- 

 biggin, a well - sheltered plateau above the Carse, 

 and within short reach of the Ochils, that the 

 modern farm residence is set. From that stance one 

 can have a magnificent outlook to the Carse sec- 

 tion of the Forth and the great countryside, which 

 is guarded by the Ochils, Campsies, and Southern 

 Grampians. Mr Ebenezer Moubray Alexander, who 

 succeeded his father as tenant last year, also holds 

 Glenochil, a 150 -acres farm, the property of Mr 

 Alexander Macnab of Middleton, Kerse. That farm, 

 which is about a mile and a half to the north of New- 

 biggin, may be said to be as close to the Ochils as it 



