358 FIELD AND FERN. 



they scour past six or seven thick. Generally three 

 or four buyers club together^ and take a lot subject 

 to the ruling price of the day, and, in case of a dis- 

 pute, a referee settles it by a trial lot. Some 

 wretched half-bred queys were the beef accessories, 

 along with a few Irish and Ayrshire; and there were 

 gipsies in abundance at the edge of the hill, and 

 cheap jacks, who would fit you up with a coat and 

 vest of Tweed, '' all wool,^^ in the twinkling of an eye. 

 The number of lambs was by no means up to our 

 hopes. More than a third are picked up every year, 

 and never reach the hill at all ; as dealers come about 

 ten days or a fortnight before Langholm fair, which 

 was once the main market of the country. It is said 

 that 52,000 lambs, "be the same more or less,'^have 

 been pitched at Lockerby, and that the propor- 

 tion of Cheviots to half-breds is fulh^ three to 

 one. 



Still the half-breds are spreading fast over all the 

 arable lands of Dumfriesshire. There is little wheat 

 or barley in the county, and oats out of lea, turnips or 

 potatoes, oats or barley, grass seeds and rye-grass, is 

 the rotation, and the latter pastured or cut for hay is 

 most valuable for half-bred lambs. The Moffat and 

 Langholm road is the half-bred boundary ; and the 

 Roxburghshire plan of putting half-bred ewes to a Lei- 

 cester tup* is never followed. The breeders will have 



* The following, wliicli arrived too late for insei'tion in its proper place, is 

 the pedigree of one of the rams (which girthed upwards of 5 feet, and measured 

 45 inches from the hack of the head to the setting on of the.tail, when he 

 was shown at Kelso) that Lord Polwarth has used a good deal of late : 



