394 
Farm Reports. 
purchasing what and when they want. The auctioneers pay 
in three weeks, and deduct 2^ per cent, for commission. Some 
of the firms send out bags and sheets for wool packing from the 
beginning of April to the end of the year. A sheet will carry 
300 to 400 lbs., but those intended for exportation will take six 
hundred weight. Some bags will carry a third of that amount, 
but more usually 10 to 12 stone (of 24 lbs.) of " laid " or smeared 
wool, and 8 stone of white. North of Edinburgh the wool 
generally comes to the warehouse packed in bags, and south of 
it in sheets, and smearing is now almost entirely confined 
to north of the Frith of Forth. Mr. Aitchlson has quite abjured 
the custom, and simply uses dips in October and November. 
The washing begins about the middle of June, a week before 
clipping time, and the sheep are put thrice through a mountain 
burn dammed into a basin with stones and turf. Seven fleeces 
to the 24 lbs. stone is his calculation for white wool throughout 
the flock, and an ordinary two or three shear tup (which breeders 
prefer to a shearling on the hills) will clip 7 lbs. Penchryst 
produces better wool than any of Mr. Aitchison's other mountain 
farms, as it is in a drier climate, and farther away from Dum- 
friesshire, and " the weeping West coast." He has not tried the 
plan of putting " coats," as Mr. Brydon does, on his dinmonts and 
gimmers from Michaelmas until the beginning of April. The 
woollen cloth prevents the rain from settling on the fleece, but 
some consider that it prevents the wool from rising properly. 
Where the flockmasters have no wether land, the wether lambs 
are sold to farmers in the low districts. Melrose (August 12) 
has almost ceased to be a Cheviot lamb fair, and Lockerby 
(August 13th) has now scarcely anything but half-breds. On 
Carlisle Sands (August 26th) there is a great increase of Cheviot 
lambs each year, and so at Newcastleton (September 5th) in the 
LIddesdale district. These fairs are generally supplied by mid- 
wether lambs, as the tops have been sold privately to be fed off 
turnips at a year and a half. The Oliver auction mart is gradually 
becoming "a great fact," and superseding private sales, and 
upwards of ten thousand cast ewes and wether lambs have been 
sold there on a Monday. The wether lambs are sent to grass if 
possible, as they are thought to stand the winter better on it than 
on turnips; Avhereas in Sutherlandshire they are universally sent 
away, to be put on to turnips in Ross-shire. Taking turnips for 
them is a plan of only recent growth on the Border. When 
Mr. Aitchlson commenced sheep-farming with Menzion in 1820, 
he and the late Mr. Brydon were the only men during the next 
ten years who took turnips in Dumfriesshire. The price in 
that county has sometimes been only 2^d. per week for ewes, 
and \\cl. for hoggs, whereas last year it was more than four times 
