peesident's addeess. 285 



Tlie Third Field Meeting was arranged for Low Eow, Coome 

 Crag, Birdoswald, and Gilsland, and took place on "Wednesday, 

 July 16tli. An early party, numbering six members, left New- 

 castle by the first train for Low Eow, where breakfast was 

 provided at the Railway Inn, adjoining the station. The unset- 

 tled weather in the early part of the week, no doubt, influenced 

 the attendance of the members at this meeting. After breakfast, 

 through the kind permission of the directors, Carrick's Cumber- 

 land Dairy Farm was visited, and the party spent considerable 

 time in inspecting the processes of separating the cream from 

 the milk, the churning and butter making, the manufacture of 

 cheese from skimmed milk, and lastly the pig farm, where the 

 whey, left after the cheese making, is utilised for fattening swine. 

 The contrast between the processes used at this model dairy 

 farm and those manual operations carried on formerly, and even 

 at the present time, in the most celebrated cheese-making dis- 

 tricts of the South of England were very striking. But whether 

 machinery or manual dexterity produce the best quality of cheese 

 and butter is perhaps a problem not so easy to solve as the ques- 

 tion of quantity in a given time. A very pleasant walk soon led 

 us to the side of the river Irthing, swollen and turbulent, and 

 more the colour of London porter than any other fluid. We 

 crossed at Wall-holme by a substantial wooden bridge, and then 

 along the winding banks, which became steeper and narrower, 

 and densely wooded, as we ascended the stream. This part of 

 the stream is most romantic and unique, and must be seen to be 

 fully appreciated, for no one looking over this portion of the Ir- 

 thing Valley, from a distance, would realize the appearance and 

 depth of the river bed as viewed in the vicinity of Coome Crag. 

 At this place the swollen state of the river obliged the party to 

 quit its banks, so we struck up through the fields and across the 

 Eoman earthworks or vallum, which form a conspicuous feature 

 to the south of the line of the wall. At Birdoswald we were 

 met by a second party, including several ladies, who had travelled 

 by a later train to Rose Hill station, and who had walked by 

 Hill House. The whole party were courteously allowed to in- 

 spect the Roman station of Amlloganna, also the antiquities 



V 



