MR. HOGG ON THE EFFECTS OF MOLE-CATCHING. 239 
But it is not to the Duke of Buccleuch’s lands alone that 
this practice has been confined ; for many are the smaller 
proprietors who have, at a later period, begun and moled their 
lands, and all the experiments have been followed by the same 
consequences. I could name eight or nine, and am willing to do 
so to any gentleman in private, but b do not choose to publish 
the names of the farms, or of their proprietors. But in all of 
them, on the very hills and gairs where the moles prevailed most, 
there did the pining first make its appearance. 
The change that has taken place in our country in the course 
of the last thirty years is truly melancholy to an old fellow like 
me. Our beautiful ever-green gairs, which were literally covered 
with mole-hills every summer, on which the ewes lay and the 
lambs sported, and on which the grass was as dark green and 
as fine and finer than any of the daisied fields of Lothian, alas ! 
where are they now ? All vanished, and become the coarsest of 
the soil, and thus the most beautiful feature of the pastoral coun¬ 
try is annihilated. 
Mount Benger, 6tli April, 1829. James Hogg. 
_ * 
[We have heard the expediency questioned, even as regards a 
country in tillage, of that war of extermination which is carried on 
against the mole. We knew a worthy old gentleman, a sagaci¬ 
ous observer, who, to his dying hour, would not suffer a mole 
upon his ground to be harmed. He had reclaimed from a waste 
his whole : paternal estate, and laid it in grass fields; and he 
maintained, that the moles were his labourers, yearly top- 
dressing his grounds, and adding to the depth of the soil and 
fertility of the sward; and to our eyes, every field seemed to bear 
evidence of the good effects of this species of natural manuring. 
Husbandmen, indeed, have long known how to avail themselves 
of this part of the labours.,of the mole; but then they have 
always held it necessary to destroy the labourer. 
“ Get the moule-catcher cunningly moule for to kill, 
And harrow and cast abroad every hill.” 
But it may be questioned whether the mole does not, in another 
way, yet more important, benefit the farmer. This is by the 
destruction of grubs, wire-worms, and the like. It is known that 
the mole is a very voracious creature. He subsists on worms and 
the larvae of insects, which he finds under ground, where no 
other enemy can reach them; and, at night, he sallies forth and 
pursues his prey on the surface. It is probable that he then de¬ 
stroys a vast number of grubs and other creatures, whose ravages 
would all be felt in their season. Can it be, then, that in de¬ 
stroying the mole, we are guilty of the heedless destruction of a 
friend ? The matter is worthy of more consideration than it has, 
perhaps, yet obtained. We think that a stYong case has been 
made out in favour of the “blessed little pioneer/’ by our inge¬ 
nious and kind-hearted correspondent ; and that in all the pas- 
