26 SHEEP : BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



the tenant of Bogend, are the direct descendants of the 

 Bogend flock. I can speak from personal knowledge of the 

 excellence of this old-established flock, which, being con- 

 tinued in the same family for upwards of a hundred years, 

 forms the best link between our time and the period of the 

 Culleys, in the history of the Border Leicester breed. The 

 Culleys retired in 1806, and the dispersion of their flock 

 became, through the flock of Compton of Learmouth, the 

 progenitors of Lord Polwarth's Mertoun flock, now awarded 

 the place of highest honour among the entire breed. This 

 famous stock was, it is said, begun at an even earlier date 

 by Mr. Scott, the then proprietor of Harden and Mertoun, 

 by purchases from Culley's noted flock, so that Mr. Scott's 

 sheep were spoken of as " not inferior to the sheep of Mr. 

 Bakewell." Mr. David Archibald, of Awa Moa, Octogon, 

 New Zealand, who has traced the history of Border Leicester 

 sheep with commendable pains, says that according to this 

 account the Mertoun flock was contemporary with the Dish- 

 ley and Wark flocks. Lord Polwarth, however, claims the 

 more modest antiquity of 1802 when he states that the 

 Mertoun flock was started by his grandfather, Mr. Hugh 

 Scott of Harden, by purchases of ewes from Waddell of 

 Mousin, Burn of Millfield, and Mr. Robson, and to these he 

 afterwards added a number of ewes from Mr. Jobson's flock 

 at Chillingham, Newtoun. The early rams were hired from 

 the Culleys, to whom as much as 100 gs. was paid for their 

 use for a season. In 1888 Lord Polwarth sold twenty-eight 

 shearling rams at the Kelso sale for an average of ^"36 gs. 3d., 

 and one for 165 gs., showing the extraordinary estimation in 

 which pure descent as well as high quality is held, and bearing 

 out the opinion, which has often been expressed, that there 

 is no limit to the value of high-bred stock if the correct lines 

 are adhered to. The average of 812 rams from twenty-one 

 noted flocks at the same sale was 11 js. zod. each. It may 

 not be out of place to mention that in the same season 138 

 rams of the English Leicester breed made an average of 



