We were aware that the gentlemen who, in a manly straightforward way, gave us the privilege of publishing their names as drawing up and attesting facts consistent with their knowledge and experience of agriculture, might be exposed to impertinence and cavil, and we were resolved to punish any assailant in the slightest degree worthy of notice. These witnesses of ours were selected by us from their high reputations as farmers, and in very few instances were we acquainted with their opinions, political or other. We appealed to them as the highest court of authority that we could find in matters agricultural; and since their names were published, what we have heard from others confirms us in our estimate of them. There are farmers as good as they; but the history of farming in Scotland, for the last thirty years, proves that they stand second to none in their profession; and it is most absurd and indiscreet in any man to rush into print, proclaiming that they are behind the age; ignorant, it would seem, of the uses of oilcake and guano. Mr Caird has done this, and must therefore undergo condign punishment. The fortuitous importance of Mr Caird lies in the circumstance that his mode of stating an exceptional case in farming has been seized hold of by the whole troop of enemies to British agricultural industry, as a handle for insult to his brother farmers, and a specimen of what might be effected throughout the country under the blessings of Free Trade. We do not think that Mr Caird even dreamed of this when he wrote his first pamphlet; on the contrary, we feel satisfied that his intentions were good. In our January paper we were purposely tender to him--most unwilling to say anything that might hurt his feelings--and it was only the clatter that had been made about his pamphlet, that induced us to mention him at all. Our excellent and kind-hearted friend Mr Stephens at first declined to come forward personally, and expose the fallacy of the Auchness system of husbandry, and only did so when we explained our reasons for thinking that it ought to be done. We are greatly surprised at the unbecoming tone of Mr Caird's remarks about Mr Stephens, and did not suppose that any man at all acquainted with Scottish agriculture would have presumed so to speak of the author of the _Book of the Farm_. When we saw "Donald Caird come again," in the shape of a vindication from an imaginary attack, we felt much pained that he had forced himself upon us. He does not attack us directly, but--what is much more unpardonable in our eyes--he attacks and foolishly sneers at the gentlemen who furnished us with undeniable facts, none of whom, with the exception of Mr Stephens, ever mentioned his name, or were thinking of him at all.