388 
Farm Reports. 
his five farms, Mr. Aitchison will Iamb about 6000 ewes. Th.? 
whole of them are Cheviots, as he sold off all his blackfaces 
when he gave up part of his Bewcastle holding. 
Menzion is seven miles from the source of the Tweed, in 
Peeblesshire, and belongs to Sir Graham Montgomery, M.P. 
Mr. Aitchison lived there in his father's day, and only left it for 
Linhope in 1836. Its 5000 to 6000 acres contain a great deal of 
low ground, and the higher part runs out near to Lough Skeen. 
It carries about 2000 ewes and 1000 wethers, and is the only 
farm on which Mr. Aitchison keeps the latter. He holds it with 
Hope Head, another farm of Sir Graham's, which has plenty of 
old pasture for wintering the wether hoggs. On the Cheviot hills 
the wethers generally go offas two shears, but Mr. Aitchison keeps 
them a year longer. There is now so much difficulty in getting 
grass and turnips for them their first winter — as farmers keep 
their own hoggs and force them on for the butcher market when 
shearlings — that the three-year wether system is becoming more 
prevalent. Under it fewer wether hoggs are kept each year, but 
the number is sustained by keeping them a year longer. There 
is very fine summer land at Menzion, but it lacks grasses for 
winter and spring. The most elevated part of it, Gameshope, 
where the 2 and 3 year-old wethers are grazed, rises to a height 
of 2600 feet, and in a severe v^ inter the sheep cannot reach its 
mosses. Practically speaking, a Cheviot sheep should have 
mosses for spring, and grass for the 'other portions of the year. 
Stoolbent, a root in the mosses, is a prime favourite with shepherds, 
as it comes early in the spring, and lasts through a great part of 
the winter. The shepherds have also deep faith in certain coarse 
grasses which do not die in winter, and they look upon deer- 
hair as rather spiry, but still very succulent. 
Penchryst, in Roxburghshire, is perhaps the best of Mr. 
Aitchison's ewe farms, and it is well supplied with what are 
termed " kebparks," or small enclosures of from 6 to 8 acres 
each on different portions of the hill. In consequence of their 
vicinity to a station on the North British line, which runs 
through a mile and a half of the farm, they have all been surface- 
limed, at an expense of rather more than 4Z. per acre. Each 
hirsell has three or four of them, and one of their peculiar 
advantages is, that the weaker ewes and lambs can be enclosed 
in them during bad weather, and fed with mountain hay. The 
farm belongs to Sir William Elliot, of Stobs, and runs within 
5 miles of Hawick, along the banks of the Slitrigg, over nearly 
5000 acres. It is not such good summer land as Menzion, but 
it has a larger variety of grasses, and brings through sheep quite 
as good in quality, and in m9re equal condition at all seasons 
of the year. It was a very true saying of old Mr, Brydon's, that 
