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Many of them they send alive to London, but they also send an enormous quantity of dead meat. No men in the trade know their business better. Mr Martin, however, must still stand at the top. As an example, I may mention that he exhibited a four-year-old Highlander at Birmingham, London, and Liverpool in 1868, which gained the first prize at each of these places. His head now adorns Mr Martin's shop in New Market, alongside of the royal arms. It is a perfect model of what the head of a Highlander should be. Deacon Milne, however, surpassed them all for several years, if not in numbers, in the quality and value of the animals he forwarded to the great Christmas market. For several years Mr Skinner, Woodside, has sent about 100 valuable animals to the Christmas market. He is one

of the greatest senders of dead meat, and he also feeds a large lot of bullocks. To speak of all the senders of dead meat, butchers, and jobbers, in the city and the provinces, would be a hopeless and an endless task. I believe there cannot be fewer than 500 in Aberdeenshire alone; and, long as I have been connected with the cattle trade, I could not name one in ten.

I have briefly noticed the cattle trade in connection with the Aberdeen butchers: let me now glance at the shippers and jobbers of the provinces, as it is from them that the raw material is furnished. The following remarks apply to Aberdeen, Banff, and Moray shires : our provincial jobbers are a host in themselves, and are a very heterogeneous multitude; from the man who can pay thousands, through all the intermediate stages, down to the man who buys a beast and cannot lift it unless he can sell it there and then for a profit. We have a large class of the first, who can not only pay their hundreds but their thousands. We have an intermediate class that job, generally occupiers of two and four horse farms. There is no end to their peregrinations, toil, and industry; in summer, in winter, in fair and foul, by night and by day, by moonlight and by

starlight, they scour the country, and collect cattle from all points of the compass, and sell them at the fairs to farmers, butchers, and dealers. We have also the dealer of small pretensions, who can only afford to buy a beast or two, which he drives to market himself: such a beginning, however, I have known end in becoming the proprietor of £25,000 worth of landed property. We have the cow-jobber, and it is sometimes a very lucrative business; many have been very successful in the trade. Mr Forrest was a cow-jobber: he rented all the grass land round Hamilton Palace for many years from the Duke of Hamilton. He bought nothing but cows, and it was said he would ride 100 miles to buy a farrow cow. He died worth a fortune, and proprietor of a good estate. We have the jobber who buys only lean store cattle, and the jobber of fat cattle alone. Banffshire can claim a Stoddart; and Morayshire the two M'Kessacks, the Laird of Ardgay and the tenant of Balnaferry. I do not know which to admire most, -the daring and skill of the laird, or the caution and skill of the tenant. They are both self-made men. Robert M'Kessack is now a large landed proprietor, having added Roseisle since I last wrote. He farms a part of his own estates, and is one of the largest feeders of cattle in the kingdom. He is as actively engaged in business as ever. His brother, John M'Kessack, is a grand judge of store cattle. He rents perhaps more arable land than any man in Morayshire. I have given him at one time or other £30,000 for store cattle. He now feeds the greater part of his stock. The M'Kessacks are remarkable men. In that district also we have M'Donald, Blervie, through whose hands perhaps three-fourths of the store cattle in Morayshire pass. He is also a most remarkable man, entirely self-made, and rents four or five farms. Just the other day he took the desirable farm of Morayston, one of the largest and finest farms in Inverness-shire. Castle Stuart and it adjoin. The two farms thus occupied by Mr

M'Donald amount to nearly 800 arable acres, and form a most desirable possession. He has at this moment 3300 sheep feeding, and hundreds of cattle. He is one

of the best judges of a commercial beast, and is an indefatigable and industrious man. Since 1869, when the second edition of 'Cattle and Cattle-Breeders' was published, many changes have taken place in Morayshire and the north. Three of my young friends have taken the highest position as breeders, feeders, and successful exhibitors. The first I shall mention is James Bruce, Burnside, Fochabers; I cannot enumerate his prizes, but he crowned the whole by winning in 1872 the 100-guinea cup and gold medal at the Smithfield show for the best beast exhibited, with a polled Scot bred at Achlochrach near Dufftown. His cousin, Robert Bruce, has also taken a very prominent position, not only as a most successful exhibitor at our fat shows, but as a celebrated breeder of shorthorns. Last season his bull ("Lord Irwin") carried everything before him at the Royal English Agricultural Society's Show, at the Yorkshire, Northumberland, and Highland Society's and other exhibitions, and finished a season's career rarely equalled with about £200 of prize-money. Mr Cran, Kirkton, Inverness, has come prominently into notice within the last few years as a most successful exhibitor at our national shows, as a breeder of shorthorns, and an exhibitor of fat stock. Mr Harris, Earnhill, still holds his own at our national shows as one of our most successful exhibitors. I was present at the dinner of the Forres Fat Club Show when the telegram arrived that Mr Harris had gained the Smithfield cup and gold medal in 1866 for the best beast in the yard, and I was obliged to admit that Aberdeenshire had on that occasion to bow to Morayshire.

Mr Walker still keeps up the prestige of Altyre for producing some of our most meritorious prize-winners ; and at the last Smithfield show he exhibited a Highland ox, generally acknowledged to be the best Highlander

that had ever appeared in a show-yard. Many good judges thought he should have had the Smithfield cup. He was sold by Mr Giblet for £90. The Altyre sheep are invincible wherever they appear. It affords me the

greatest pleasure to record the success of my young friends in Morayshire and the north; but it is with the deepest sorrow that I have to notice the death of my respected friend Mr George Brown, Westertown, since the last edition of Cattle and Cattle- Breeders' was published. He is most deeply regretted by all his friends and acquaintances, by whom he was held in the highest esteem.

We have in Aberdeenshire Mr Reid, Greystone, in the Vale of Alford; Mr Stoddart, Cultercullen; the Messrs Bruce in Alford, Clova, and Strathbogie; and Mr Mennie of Brawland Knowes. Mr Reid, Greystone, has attained a high position as a feeder and grazier. His stock have for many years taken a prominent place at our national shows at London, Birmingham, Liverpool, York, Newcastle, Leeds, Edinburgh, &c., &c. Mr Adamson, Balquharn, is fast coming into notice as an exhibitor of fat cattle. He gained the 50-guinea cup at the last Manchester show, the first prize at Birmingham, and the first at Leeds, all with the same animal, which was sold for £86. This bullock was second for the challenge cup at Aberdeen.

92

V.

- BLACK POLLED ABERDEEN AND ANGUS CATTLE AND SHORTHORNS.

It is not my purpose to treat of shorthorns: I may, however, glance at some of the principal breeders of that kind of stock in the north. Mr Alexander Hay, Shethin, was the first who introduced shorthorns into Aberdeenshire. He bought the celebrated bull "Jerry" from the late Mr John Rennie of Phantassie; and he was the first shorthorn that crossed the Dee. I should have mentioned his brother, the late William Hay, Shethin, the celebrated breeder of shorthorns, and one of the greatest feeders in the north. He was the first man in Aberdeenshire who gained a prize at the Smithfield Club Show, the animal being a Hereford ox; and he was also the first that sent cattle by railway to London. He and the Messrs Cruickshank, Sittyton, had everything their own way in the show-yard for years. late Mr Grant Duff of Eden was one of the greatest and most systematic breeders of shorthorns in the north. He 'paid 170 guineas for "Brawith Bud," and she made his "herd's fortunes." He astonished the country by his crosses between the shorthorns and West Highlanders. He was dead against the system of forcing for the show-yard.

The

Foremost among eminent breeders of shorthorns in the north at the present time are the Messrs Cruickshank, Sittyton. Their fame is European; they own

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