THE DUTCH SUPREMACY 107 



of every Provender fit to raise them : For they 

 generally never stall any, but such Oxen as are 

 no longer fit for the Yoke ; or Cows, but such as, 

 the Goodwoman tells her Husband, are no longer 

 good to breed or milk : These, for eight or ten 

 weeks, they blow up with scalded Barley, Chaff, 

 and Malt-grains ; that lean Rickle of Bones, is all 

 the Butchers can pick up in Fife and Lothian, 

 from Candlemas to June, even for our Metropolis. 

 No other town is so well served. ... I am 

 informed, that some Gentlemen of Edinburgh, 

 send to Berwick for their Beef and Veal. . . . 

 Methinks, it should raise the indignation, as well 

 as Shame of all Scotsmen, as I cannot conceal it 

 does very much mine, that our chief Town 

 cannot, for 4 or 5 Months of the Year, furnish 

 Meat for a Gentleman's Table, but we must send 

 to England. . . . Let us inclose 1 and furnish 

 Stock of proper Maintenance for our Cattle for 

 Winter and Spring, of Turneps, Fog and Hay, 

 my Life, we shall raise our Beasts as high and 

 fat proportionable to their Bone, as their Valley of 

 Essam, let be their Berwick. . . . And I believe 

 now, a great many English Gentlemen, who, in 

 our Highlands, in the Month of May, see the 

 Leanness the Country Beasts are then in, to the 

 Degree they must be helped up when they fall or 

 ly down of themselves, &c., &c." 



But as the desire for agricultural improvement, 



1 That is, fence common lands, etc. 



