Nor do these exceptions at all clash with the hypothesis of the connexion of the grades of holdings with the number of oxen contributed by the holders to the manorial plough team of their village; for as the number of oxen in the team sometimes varied from the normal standard, so also did the number of virgates in the hide or carucate. «Connexion between the oxen and the holdings.» So that, summing up the evidence of this chapter, daylight seems to have dawned upon the meaning of the interesting gradation of holdings in villenage in the open fields. The hide or carucate seems to be the holding corresponding with the possession of a full plough team of 8 oxen. The half-hide corresponds with the possession of one of the 2 yokes of 4 abreast; the virgate with the possession of a pair of oxen, and the half-virgate or bovate with the possession of a single ox; all having their fixed relations to the full manorial plough team of 8 oxen. And this conclusion receives graphic illustration when the Scotch chronicler Winton thus quaintly describes [p066] the efforts of King Alexander III. to increase the growth of corn in his kingdom:-- Yhwmen, pewere karl, or knawe That wes of mycht an ox til have He gert that man hawe part in pluche: Swa wes corn in his land enwche: Swa than begouth, and efter lang Of land wes mesure, ane oxgang. Mychty men that had mâ Oxyn, he gert in pluchys ga. Be that vertu all his land Of corn he gert be abowndand.[86] Not that Alexander III. was really the originator of the terms 'plow-land' and 'oxgate,' but that he attained his object of increasing the growth of corn by extending into new districts of Scotland, before given up chiefly to grazing, the same methods of husbandry as elsewhere had been at work from time immemorial, just as the monks of Kelso probably had done, by giving each of their villein tenants a 'stuht' of 2 oxen with which to plough their husband-lands. One point more, however, still remains to be explained before the principle of the open field system can be said to be fully grasped, viz. why the strips of which the hides, virgates, and bovates were composed were scattered in so strange a confusion all over the open fields. «Services on _Kelso_ manors.» In the meantime the following examples of the services of the villein tenants of _Kelso_ husband-lands and bovates are appended for the purpose of comparison with those of other districts:-- [p067] BOLDEN[87] At Bolden-- The monks have 28 'husbands'-lands in the villa of Bolden, each of which used to render 6s. 8d. at Pentecost and Martinmas, and to do certain services, viz.: To reap in autumn for 4 days with all his family, himself and wife. To perform likewise a fifth day's work in autumn with 2 men. To carry peat with one waggon for one day from Gordon to the 'pullis.' To carry one waggon-load of peat from the 'pullis' to the abbey in summer, and no more. To carry once a year with one horse from Berwick.