30 Report of Meetings for 1885. By Jas. Hardy. 



alternate like a succession of ridge and furrow. It is at length 

 taken possession of by the highway to Kale water, much to its 

 improvement. We had now the Oxnaru farms on one side, 

 and Samieston on the other. Samieston, which the Club's 

 correspondent, Mr Thomas Elliot, has rendered famous to ento- 

 mologists, was of old possessed by the chief of the clan Davidson. 

 The place itself lies in a depression well sheltered by plantations. 

 In one planting on our right the wind had wrought great havoc 

 among the conifers. Down through the gap we saw the country- 

 near Cessford and Marlefield, and across for Caverton and Beau- 

 mont forest, and onwards to Kelso. 



Bats is now the farm on our left, and we have Shipden or 

 Shibden in front. We turn in the direction of Oxnam at a 

 cottage called Shot-head. The Eoman road now disused, the 

 drovers' occupation being gone and the gypsies excluded from 

 grazing by high double walls, passes on margined by whins and 

 other rough overgrowths in the direction of Crailing. 



The cottage at Shot-head is occupied by an old quarryman, 

 John Buckham and his wife. He grows white horehound in the 

 little flower border in front of his house, for his cough. The 

 decoction is intensely bitter. This is not a solitary instance 

 where this old medical herb is greatly prized. I have a plant 

 which represents a humble residence now tenantless, whose 

 inmate grew it to supply the neighbourhood. John has 

 decorated his borders and window-sills with numerous jaspers, 

 and yolks of stones containing agates, collected in course of his 

 avocation. Here I obtained a stone-socket once used for the 

 spindle of a wind-mill, which he had got in redding Pierslaw 

 quarry. It is bored out of a fragment of a water worn bluish 

 greywacke boulder. The old woman was from Souden 

 (Southdean) parish, and told how she had seen at Doorpool, an 

 urn taken out of a cairn, as well as some black buttons, which 

 she described as having required to be fastened by a thread 

 passed through a perforation on the underside : — no doubt jet or 

 shale buttons. Deer antlers had likewise been dug up at 

 Doorpool. 



There was a profusion of Lastrea dilatata in the fir plantation 

 behind the house, which forms with its spreading tufts excellent 

 game cover. This furnished an idea of the natural produce of 

 the soil where uncleared. We crossed a damp field belonging to 

 Harden farm, to the public road; passing Pierslaw quarry 



