Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine | Page 4

tail head, which continues to move on along the back, on both sides of the spine to the bend of the ribs, to the neck. Then it is deposited between the muscles, parallel with the cellular tissue. Meanwhile it is covering the lower round of the ribs, descending to the flanks until the two sides meet under the belly, from whence it proceeds to the brisket or breast in front and the shaw behind, filling up the inside of the arm-pits and thighs. The spaces around the fibres of the muscles are the last to receive a deposition of fat, but after this has begun, every other part simultaneously receives its due share, the back and kidneys receiving the most--so much so that the former literally becomes _nicked_, as it is termed; that is, the fat is felt through the skin to be divided into two portions. When all this has been accomplished, the sheep is said to be fat or ripe."--Vol. ii. p. 93.
But the enjoyment of tracing the accumulating fat is not enough for our author--as soon as his sheep is ripe, he forthwith proceeds to slaughter it; and though he describes every part of this process accurately, and with true professional relish, coolly telling us, that "the operation is unattended with cruelty;" yet we must be content to refer our readers to the passage (vol. ii. p. 96) as an illustration of his skill in this interesting branch of farm-surgery. He is really an amiable sheep-operator, our author--what placid benevolence and hatred of quackery appear in his instructions-- "Learn to slaughter _gently_, dress the carcass neatly and cleanly, in as plain a manner as possible, and without flourishes."--p. 167.
But whisky-toddy and fat mutton are not the only things our author relishes. He must have been a farm-servant, living in a bothy, at least as long as he drove on the road or practised surgery in the slaughter-house. After describing the farm-servant's wages and mode of living, he thus expands upon the subject of Scottish brose:--
"The oatmeal is usually cooked in one way, as brose. A pot of water is put on the fire to boil--a task which the men (in the bothy) take in turns; a handful or two of oatmeal is taken out of the small chest with which each man provides himself, and put into a wooden bowl, which also is the ploughman's property; and, on a hollow being made in the meal, and sprinkled with salt, the boiling-water is poured over the meal, and the mixture receiving a little stirring with a horn-spoon, and the allowance of milk poured over it, the brose is ready to be eaten; and, as every man makes his own brose, and knows his own appetite, he makes just as much as he can consume." [2]
[Footnote 2: "The fare is simple, and is as simply made, but it must be wholesome, and capable of supplying the loss of substance occasioned by hard labour; for I believe that no class of men can endure more bodily fatigue for ten hours every day, than those ploughmen of Scotland who subsist on this brose three times a-day."--Vol. ii. p. 384.]
But if the life of the ploughman is familiar to our author, the work he has to do, and the mode of doing it well, and the reason why it should be done one way here, and another way there, are no less so. The uninitiated have no idea of the complicated patterns which the ploughman works, according to the nature of the soil and the season of the year in which he labours. He may be "gathering up--crown-and-furrow ploughing--casting, or yoking, or coupling ridges--casting ridges with gore furrows--cleaving down ridges with or without gore furrows--ploughing two-out-and-two-in--ploughing in breaks--cross-furrowing--angle-ploughing, ribbing, and drilling--or he may be preparing the land by feering or striking the ridges."-- (Vol. i. p. 464.) All these methods of turning up the land are described and illustrated by wood-cuts, and we are sure quite as effectually done upon paper as if the author had been explaining them upon his own farm, guiding one of his own best ploughs, and strengthened by a basin of good brose made from his own meal-chest.
But the practical skill of Mr. Stephens is not confined to the lower walks of the agricultural life. The ploughman sometimes qualifies himself to become a steward, that he may rid himself of the drudgery of working horses. He has then new duties to perform, which are thus generally described.
"The duty of the steward or _grieve_, as he is called in some parts of Scotland, and bailiff in England, consists in receiving general instructions from his master, the farmer, which he sees executed by the people under his charge. He exercises a direct control over the ploughmen and field-workers.... It