382 Saddle and Sirloin. 



eternity with a greywacke woman," while occasionally 

 up some gorge we could catch a glimpse of a distant 

 church, or what seemed like a beacon tower. Guides 

 and beacons have for centuries been often useless 

 across these treacherous sands ; and " one little man, 

 round-faced, drowned 1577," "a poor apprentice, and 

 officer for salt," "a native of Geneva (Domenico 

 Curatto)," and " nine in one cart," are but a tithe of 

 those which have gone down. 



A walk to the top of Bigland Scaur, which looks 

 right down upon Holker Park, gave us the most com- 

 prehensive bird's-eye view of the pastures. The rocky 

 platform on which we stood seemed like a sort of 

 Arthur's Seat, amid a profusion of oaks and ashes. 

 To our right lay Ellerside Breast, pointing over some 

 thousand acres of peat towards the lake country, 

 where the snow was just seen to linger upon Coniston 

 Old Man. More in front of us was the hill of Hoad, 

 rising above the woods of Low Frith, from whence the 

 seaboard stretched boldly away past Ulverstone and 

 Conishead Priory, to the headland at Peel. Ulver- 

 stone was a fitting feature in a shorthorn landscape. 

 Its Young Ben had a few days before defeated all 

 comers in the aged bull class at Dublin ; and we had 

 but to carry our mind back to an August show, to see 

 its brace of Barons, Messrs. Torr and Sanday, adjudg- 

 ing the ten silver challenge cups, and Mr. Unthank 

 beckoned over the rails into the ring, to decide the 

 moot point between Duchess 77th, her companion 

 Moss Rose, and Mr. Eastwood's Rosette. 



Just beneath us, to the right of Holker Park, lay 

 fully 130 acres of reclaimed land. The salt marsh 

 was nearly all drained by the Duke of Devonshire to 

 the depth of four feet, with two-inch pipes, covered 

 with peat moss or soil, to act as a filter and keep the 

 sand out of the drains. It has been cropped with oats, 

 green crops, wheat, and clover in succession, and the 

 latter yielded two heavy crops last year. A Fowler's 



