ROMAN CAMP TO ATHELSTANEFORD, 123 



cwt., yellow 36 tons 10 cwt., white 45 tons per 

 acre/^* 



We were hardly likely to pass through East Lothian 

 without visiting the resting-place of Rennieof Phan- 

 tassie^ the friend of Lord Leicester and Christian 

 Curwen, and of all the first breeders of his time, and 

 perhaps the man who did more than any other to 

 encourage a pure shorthorn taste in Scotland. Two 

 other noted men lie in Preston Kirk. Hugh Ram- 

 ad ge, the faithful servant of " Phantassie^^ for eight- 

 and-fifty years, was the first to go. He died in ^28^ 

 and only a few months after his old master had placed 

 a stone ^^ in testimony of respect to his memory/' he 

 himself had his summons on the verge of eighty. 

 His hard-working Boswell, Brown of Markle soon 

 followed him, and left behind him two very 

 sombre-looking volumes, with mottoes from Pliny 

 and Thomas a Kempis, and dedicated to Sir John 

 Sinclair. The volumes are hardly such a record of 

 the Northern Bates as we had hoped to find them ; 

 but they tell how, in 1811, he assured his incredu- 

 lous countrymen that the beasts which would ere 

 long become their beef staple " were wider and 

 thicker in their form or mould" than the ones they 

 cherished, " and cousequently feeding to the most 

 weight, and yielding the greatest quantity of tallow." 



Young Phantassie was of a more dashing turn, and 

 bought cows at high prices from Wetherell and 



* " Ten Years of East Lothian Fanning," by Mr. Soot Sldrving (" Eoyal 

 Agiicultnral Society's Jwzroal," :LIarch, 1865). 



