grazed. There was one of them that his keeper never dared to approach, and the stall had to be cleaned out with a long crook. They consumed few turnips, and did not pay sixpence for what turnips they did consume. No other description of cattle, however, is so beautiful for noblemen's and gentlemen's parks.

As to the Galloway cattle, they also have had a fair trial with me. I was in the habit of buying for years from one of the most eminent judges of store Galloways in Britain-Captain Kennedy of Bennane

a lot of that breed. He selected them generally when stirks from all the eminent breeders of Galloway cattle, and bought nearly all the prize stirks at the different shows. In fact, he would not see a bad Galloway on his manors. The Galloway has undoubtedly many and great qualifications. On poor land they are unrivalled, except perhaps by the small Highlanders. Captain Kennedy's cattle always paid me; they were grazed on a 100-acre park of poor land-s —so poor, indeed, that our Aberdeens could not subsist upon it. I had ultimately to break it up for cropping. If I had not been obliged to do this, I should not have liked to have missed Captain. Kennedy's Galloways. Although the Galloways are such good cattle to graze-and this goes to prove the truth of my remarks as to the forcing system, the Galloways at Glenapp being wintered out-they are not so easily finished as our Aberdeen and Angus or cross-bred cattle. They have too much thickness of skin and hair, too much timber in their legs; they are too thick in their tails, too deep in their necks, too sunken in the eye, for being very fast feeders. It is difficult to make them ripe. You can bring them to be three-quarters fat, and there they

stick; it is difficult to give them the last dip. If, however, you succeed in doing so, there is no other breed worth more by the pound weight than a firstclass Galloway.

As to what we term the South-country cattle, I have also given them a trial. My experience is that they are great beasts to grow; that they consume an immense deal of food, but that they are difficult to finish; and when finished they are very indifferent sellers in the London market. They generally carry a deal of offal along with them; but those who have patience, and keep them for many months, they may pay for keep. I have had a few German and Jutland cattle through my hands, but not in sufficient numbers to enable me to say anything about them worthy of your notice. After trying all the breeds of cattle I have specified, I have come to the conclusion that the Aberdeen and Angus polled, and the Aberdeen and North-country crosses, are the cattle best adapted, under ordinary circumstances, in the north of Scotland, for paying the feeder. Our cross-bred cattle, and especially the South-country cattle, are greater consumers of food than the pure Aberdeens. This is a part of the subject which has never got the consideration it deserves. When the cross and South-country cattle are two or three years old, and when the day lengthens out, they consume a fearful quantity of food. The age of cattle ought also to be taken into consideration. No doubt a young two-year-old will grow more than a threeyear-old, and for a long keep may pay as well. But I have been always partial to aged cattle; and if you want a quick clearance, age is of great consequence. The great retail London butchers are not partial to "the two teeths," as they call them; and

I have seen them on the great Christmas-day examining the mouths of cattle before they would buy them. They die badly as to internal fat, and are generally light on the fore-rib. I have always given a preference to aged cattle, as they get sooner fat, are deep on the fore-rib, and require less cake to finish them. Aged cattle, however, are now difficult to be had, and every year they will be scarcer with the present demand for beef. A perfect breeding or feeding animal should have a fine expression of countenance-I could point it out, but it is difficult to describe upon paper. It should be mild, serene, and expressive. The animal should be fine in the bone, with clean muzzle, a tail like a rat's, and not ewe-necked; short on the legs. He should have a small well-put-on head, prominent eye, a skin not too thick nor too thin; should be covered with fine silky hair-to the touch like a lady's glove; should have a good belly to hold his meat; should be straight-backed, well ribbed up, and well ribbed home; his hook-bones should not be too wide apart. A wide-hooked animal, especially a cow after calving, always has a vacancy between the hook-bone and the tail, and a want of the most valuable part of the carcass. I detest to see hooks too wide apart; they should correspond with the other proportions of the body. A level line should run from the hook to the tail. He should be well set in at the tail, free of patchiness there and all over, with deep thighs, that the butcher may get his second round and prominent brisket deep in the fore-rib, with a good purse below him, which is always worth £1 to him in the London market; well fleshed in the forebreast, with equal covering of fine flesh all over his carcass, so valuable to the butcher. His outline

ought to be such that if a tape is stretched from the fore-shoulder to the thigh, and from the shoulder along the back to the extremity there, the line should lie close, with no vacancies; and without a void, the line should fill from the hook to the tail. From the shoulder-blade to the head should be well filled up— as we say, good in the neck vein. I am aware that the preceding remarks as to the quality and proportions a beast should possess must be very unsatisfactory to you, as they are to myself; scarcely any one animal has possessed them all, and to look for the half of them in a good commercial beast would be vain. I have consulted no writer upon the subject; they are set down, and not in good order, just as they struck me at the time. Thick legs, thick tails, sunken eyes, and deep necks, with thick skin and bristly hair, always point to sluggish feeders.

In cold weather in the month of May, the old silky coat of the strawyard bullock is of great advantage. If we could get the qualities and proportions I have specified in animals, it would not be difficult to make them fat. It would be difficult only to make them lean, when once in condition. A high standing, want of ribbing-up and ribbing home, with the tucked-up flank, always denote a worthless feeder. You must all have observed how difficult it is to bring such cattle into a state for killing. It will take a deal of cake and corn to make them ripe. A great many can never be made more than fresh; it is only a waste of time and money to keep them on.

I have adverted to the way cattle should be treated in winter as stores. The earlier you can put cattle upon grass so much the better. Cattle never forget an early bite of new grass. A week's new grass in Aberdeenshire at the first of the season

is worth at least two and a half upon old grass; and it is wonderful what improvement a good strawyard bullock will make in four or five weeks at the first of the season. If kept on straw and turnips alone in winter, he may add a third or at least a fourth to his live weight. But much depends on the weather. I have never known cattle make much improvement in April, or even up to the 12th of May, because the weather is so unsteady, and the cold nights when they are exposed in the fields take off the condition the grass puts on. The grazier will find it of great advantage to house his cattle at night during this season. In Aberdeenshire the 10th of May is about the earliest period cattle should be put to grass. Where there is new grass, first year, it is a most difficult matter to get the full advantage of it. There is no other grass to be compared with it for putting on beef in Aberdeenshire. You must be careful at the first of the season, if much rain falls, not to allow the cattle to remain on the young grass. They must be shifted immediately; and no one can get the proper advantage of such grass who is deprived of the power of shifting the cattle into a park of older grass till the land again becomes firm for the cattle. I have seen a small field of new grass in the month of May or the beginning of June utterly ruined in one night, when heavily stocked with cattle. When wet and cold the cattle wander about the whole night, and in the morning the fields are little better than ploughed land. In fact, the field so injured will never recover until broken up again.

In regard to my own farms, I cut scarcely any hay. I pasture almost all my new grass, and the moment the cattle's feet begin to injure the grass,