112 FIELD AND FERN. 



Avire fences round it. Kingwater onh^ arrived from 

 Longtown in time to try a puppy in one of the large 

 Woolmet stubbles ; and Clasper by Clansman, fresh 

 from running up to Dunoon at the Border meeting, 

 was the illustrious stranger. He had at least 61bs. 

 too much flesh on him, and was led by a most en- 

 thusiastic boy, who was overjoyed when neither 

 Ivy nor Golden Horn was able to cope with his 

 red. 



Leicesters, which are used for crossing half-bred and 

 Chevi'ot cast ewes from the upper and middle districts 

 of the Border counties, as well as Selkirkshire, and 

 the farms at the foot of the Lammermoors, are the 

 tups most in demand in East Lothian, though 

 Southdowns hold their own pretty well, and Cots- 

 wolds and Shrops are creeping gradually in. Once 

 there were a few Bakewells at George Weirds of 

 Scoughall, but the breed wore out. He once met with 

 old Bob Barford of Foscote, and there was a joke 

 that, after dining together and exchanging minds 

 upon " the original Bakewells," they embraced, and 

 agreed to share the philosopher's stone. The East 

 Lothian men go for the true Border type, high on 

 the leg and big in the lug, and lay against the blue- 

 faces and the bare-bellies as heavily in the Edin- 

 burgh as the Borderers do in the Kelso ring. Open 

 coats are also a great point with them, so as to keep 

 clear of the Cheviots. Blue-faces, they maintain, do 

 not travel so well, and are not so hardy; and in this 

 the Skipton men bear them out. Against bare- 



