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THE DUTCH SUPREMACY
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of every Provender fit to raise them: For they generally never stall any, but such Oxen as are no longer fit for the Yoke; or Cows, but such as, the Goodwoman tells her Husband, are no longer good to breed or milk: These, for eight or ten weeks, they blow up with scalded Barley, Chaff, and Malt-grains; that lean Rickle of Bones, is all the Butchers can pick up in Fife and Lothian, from Candlemas to June, even for our Metropolis. No other town is so well served. … I am informed, that some Gentlemen of Edinburgh, send to Berwick for their Beef and Veal. … Methinks, it should raise the indignation, as well as Shame of all Scotsmen, as I cannot conceal it does very much mine, that our chief Town cannot, for 4 or 5 Months of the Year, furnish Meat for a Gentleman's Table, but we must send to England. … Let us inclose[1] and furnish Stock of proper Maintenance for our Cattle for Winter and Spring, of Turneps, Fog and Hay, my Life, we shall raise our Beasts as high and fat proportionable to their Bone, as their Valley of Essam, let be their Berwick. … And I believe now, a great many English Gentlemen, who, in our Highlands, in the Month of May, see the Leanness the Country Beasts are then in, to the Degree they must be helped up when they fall or ly down of themselves, &c., &c."

But as the desire for agricultural improvement,

  1. That is, fence common lands, etc.