388 CARSE FARMING IN FORFAR 



had been scanty in the previous season. Whether 

 it might be attributed to the bare fallows or not, the 

 Carse farms were exceptionally clean, more free from 

 weeds than any other land we have seen in that 

 exceptionally weedy year. The wheat grown was 

 usually Standard Red, so common on similar land in 

 the south ; we also saw a single field of Red Fife, that 

 wheat of superb quality though poor cropping power 

 which came to this country from Canada, where it 

 forms the bulk of what the miller knows as No. I 

 Hard Northern. The barleys were all wide-eared, and 

 the grain from the Carse is more of distillers' than 

 maltsters' quality. Sandy was the prevailing oat, 

 though some of the newer varieties are being introduced 

 with success. Heavy as the cereals were, the most 

 surprising crop to be seen in the Carse was the beans ; 

 they are spring sown, sometimes pure, sometimes 

 mixed with oats and peas, but they had grown to a 

 height of 6 ft. or more, and were still in full vigour. 

 At that time they were being cut green for the 

 bullocks ; later on they would be harvested and 

 threshed in the usual way, but the haulm and the 

 unripe pods would always provide an immense bulk of 

 rough fodder possessing considerable feeding value. 



When the grass comes round in the rotation pure 

 Timothy is sometimes sown, and the pasture thus 

 obtained may be left down for longer than the usual 

 three years. Pure Timothy meadows are common 

 enough in the United States, especially in the Middle 

 West, where they constitute one of the very few 

 departures from alternate cropping with wheat and 

 maize, and they yield a great weight of rather coarse 

 stemmy hay, the kind of hay that is more esteemed 

 by the horsekeeper in the cities, who chaffs all his hay, 

 than by the farmer. In Scotland on moderately 



