236 MR. HOGG ON THE EFFECTS OF MOLE-CATCHING. 
furrow, “ to get a pluff at the cusha doosand there were they 
going daily cowering about the backs of dykes and hedges like 
as many sharp-shooters thundering away as if the French had 
been in the field. But the marksmen were bad, and the birds 
shy, and they generally escaped with life, though, by report, at 
the expense of a number of their feathers. At length, a lad 
brought in two one day, and on opening the crops, which were 
crammed one would have thought to bursting, there was not a 
particle of any thing else in them except the seeds of the runch 
or wild mustard. I examined the contents of both with a mi¬ 
croscope, and called in all the servants to witness it. They were 
all obliged to acknowledge the fact; and forthwith a bill of eman¬ 
cipation was passed in favour of the cusha doos. The persecu¬ 
tion of them ceased, and from that day to this they have been free 
to come and go at their pleasure. 
But the most unnatural of all persecutions that ever was raised 
in a country is that against the mole, that innocent and blessed 
little pioneer who enriches our pastures annually with the first 
top-dressing, dug with great pains and labour from the fattest 
of the soil beneath. The advantages of this top-dressing are so 
apparent and so manifest to the eyes of every unprejudiced person, 
that it is really amazing how our countrymen should have persist¬ 
ed, now nearly half a century, in the most manly and valiant en¬ 
deavours to exterminate the moles from the face of the earth. 
If a hundred men and horses were employed on a common sized 
pasture farm, say of from 1500 to 2000 acres, in raising and 
driving manure for a top-dressing of that farm, they would not do 
it so effectually, so neatly, or so equally, as the natural number 
of moles on that farm would do of themselves. 
That pasture land is benefitted by a top-dressing, no man, I 
think, will attempt to deny. That the moles give it that top¬ 
dressing, as few will deny. These are identical self-evident pro- * 
positions. Then why, in the name of wonder, persist in extir¬ 
pating the moles ? u Because you farmers do not spread the 
mole-hills/’ says the laird; “ and, consequently, they are suffer¬ 
ed to accumulate and cover the surface of your best ground.’' 
li Do we not, your honour ? Do we not spread the mole-hills ? 
Neither we do. But look you over our grounds in June, in July, 
or August, if it continue dry, and you will see that the mole-hills 
are all spread—yea, so neatly spread, that you will not find one 
grain of mould left on another. Look as narrowly as you please 
over our farms from which the rnole-catcher, with his paddle, his 
traps, and his springs, is debarred, and you will find this to be 
literally true. You may trust to the lambs and the crows for 
that—another very curious provision of nature and of Divine Wis¬ 
dom, that has left no part of the natural process of enriching the 
soil unprovided for. That the crows scrape the hillocks for food 
