68 FIELD AND FERN. 



m 1864 a large three-storeyed building. There are 

 thus about 10,000 yards of floorage, which are capable 

 of storing 20,000 to 30,000 bales of wool for the 

 sales. 



When you have passed through the office, and 

 perhaps paused to look at the photograph of one 

 of Mr. Girdwood's earliest supporters, the late Mr. 

 Giinn of Glendhu, you enter the room, where sheets 

 and bags stand in piles all ready to send out. Above 

 £2^000 is invested in them alone. A few are of 

 Dundee manufacture, but they principally come from 

 Jameson of Hull, and are made of hemp, as being 

 most profitable, and very seldom of jute. The bags 

 begin to go out in April, and so on till the very end 

 of the year. Ten to forty sheets are sent out for 

 clips in the Lothians, &c., &c. ; but for big High- 

 land clips from ten to two hundred bags are re- 

 (|uired. A sheet generally carries 300 to 5001bs., but 

 English and Irish ones will go as high as 6 cwt,, when 

 intended for exportation. A bag will carry ten to 

 tiwelve Scotch stones (241bs. to the stone) of laid 

 wool, and eight stone of white wool, in fleeces ; and 

 Ihe Highland wool generally comes this way. It 

 was once a very common practice with the Scottish 

 farmers to weigh in lots of 2 stone, and thus in a bag 

 uf 10 stone the turn of the beam was against them 

 fiye times, and they perhaps lost 5 to 10 lbs. ; but 

 to obviate this, 1 lb, per cwt. of draft is allowed. 

 Sutherland shire, Ross-shire, Inverness-shire, Argyll- 

 shire, and Perthshire generally send their clips in 



