Report of Meetings for 1886. By J. Hardy. 353 



ably sized beech that had split in two, and had been hooped by 

 an iron band, over which the wood and bark were closing. 

 There were some good old flowers in the garden, and an espalier 

 apple tree of such extensive width, as to be quite a curiosity. 

 Its fruit-bearing capacity was not in proportion to the ground 

 it occupied. The foliage of the trees both here and at Carolside 

 was seared by a frost in June. At the upper end of the avenue, 

 where the ground was most moist, there was a predominance of 

 birches, that looked like j)lanted trees. Broadwoodshiel, I was 

 told, stood somewhere near this avenue. The two places are 

 enumerated together in a stanza of the well-known ' ' Leader 

 haughs and Yarrow." 



" In Burn-mill bog and Whitslaid Shaws, 

 The fearful hare she hauuteth ; 

 Brig-haugh and Braidwoodshiel she knaws, 

 And Chapel-wood frequenteth." 



The carriages now reached the public road, but had missed a 

 considerable section, which was viewed in the evening in the 

 return by the regular way. I shall hark back to survey it, as I 

 did previous to the meeting. After passing Carolside, the road 

 traverses a cutting in the red conglomerate, from which trickles 

 a tiny thread of moisture that gathers in a grateful fountain of 

 cool water by the wayside. The basal rock here is Silurian or 

 greywacke, but every now and again it is capped by conglomer- 

 ate, which imparts a red tint to the soil overlying it, and adds to 

 its fertility ; but the greater proportion of the soil hereabouts is 

 more or less clayey and of greywacke origin. The red clay or 

 conglomerate scaurs, the green now expanded now contracted 

 haughs, the abounding grey gravel margins of the river ; the 

 profusion of wood, either in scattered trees, lengthened plant- 

 ations, or dotted clumps, over the face of the level country, or 

 dispersed across the hills, were marked features in the general 

 view. Sometimes a native alder or willow thicket lurked in a 

 corner by the clear winding stream ; but most of the sylvan 

 embellishments had been imparted by human agency. Very 

 much, of the present aspect of the district is due to the industry of 

 the cultivator. The hedges were mostly of the thorn and beech. 

 There is an absence of stone and road metnl ; at the Earlston 

 end the road was repaired with basaltic rock brought from Fans ; 

 in the middle it was from greywacke boulders, extracted from 

 1 s 



