CHAPTEK XL 



SEASON 1874-75 continued. 



CONSTRUCTION HOWIETOUN PLANK PONDS. 



IN the beginning of March I designed the plank ponds, and on the 

 18th the wood arrived. On the 25th the carpenter commenced 

 building the first plank pond, and from that day the work at 

 Howietoun commenced. 



I had long coveted the stream in the Howietoun. It had the 

 two best qualifications for fish-culture : it never rose beyond a few 

 inches in flood, and that small rise was under control ; and it never 

 ran quite dry, even on July mornings before the loch was drawn. 

 In 1800 I find the Sauchie mill (whose water the Howietoun 

 Fishery now uses, the mill being discontinued) was joined by a 

 mill-lead to the Loch Coulter burn. A bog marked " Peatfoord " 

 probably received the burn in old times. This bog drains both ways, 

 to the Auchenbowie burn to the east, and to the Sauchie burn on 

 the north-west. From the levels, as they now exist, all the flow 

 would seem to have passed Sauchie, and only in heavy spates 

 could the water have gone eastward. Early in the present 

 century my grand-uncle made a new road from the Whins of 

 Milton to Loch Coulter, and the lead at that time seems to have 

 been altered, at least the bridge under the road is several yards 

 south of the old course on the map of 1800. The lead is now led 

 on the east side of the old road from Milneholme, close to the 

 fence, and parallel to the road. Any flood must overflow the lead, 

 and find its way through the fields to the north of Sauchie mill, 

 and through the old mill-race into the Sauchie burn below the 

 Howie town. The Howie town itself was a township of old 

 crofts, whose names can still be traced in the small fields shown 



