116 riELD AND FERX. 



from Hugh Watson of Keillor, and for twenty years 

 past none have been used except from J onas A¥ ebb's 

 and the Duke of Richmond's flocks. For a long time 

 the Camptown flock did not catch the judges' eye at 

 the Highland Society. Two seconds at Paris, where 

 Mr. Skirvinghad also a prize for wheat, were the pre- 

 cursor of better things ; and at Aberdeen and Stir- 

 ling alone his winnings were very little short of 

 jBIOO. At the Royal Irish Belfast show, one year, he 

 had also all the first and second prizes. He bought 

 twenty-five ewes at the Babraham sale, and with 

 that exception the flock were bred at home. It 

 averages four score, and about three hundred half- 

 breds are kept to be crossed with Leicesters or South- 

 downs for earh^ lambs or hogging. Each year he 

 sells about twenty- five Southdown tups, the majority 

 of which are bought at home for crossing or sent to 

 the colonies. The recent price of wool has not 

 helped the sale, but it has revived again of late. 



No one has spoken more eff'ectively with his pen, 

 than he has done in the Cornhill and elsewhere, against 

 the abuses of the bothy system, or stated the real 

 position of the Scottish labourer, from more close 

 and searching observation. He has thrown him- 

 self with equal energy into the wood -pigeon crusade, 

 where, unlike the Christian Advocate at Cambridge, 

 he has not annually to beat the air and confute an 

 imaginary sceptic. The case for the wood-pigeon has* 

 been stated as follows : '^ They cannot dig with their 

 beak and feet : thev remove beans and other seeds 



