BREED OF CATTLE. 3.11 



come to speak of the rearing and general management of polled 

 cattle. 



3. TJie Bcdlindalloch Herd. — This fine 'old herd, the property 

 of Sir George Macpherson Grant, Bart., presently numbers about 

 80 ammals, and is one of the best managed in the district. In 

 his book on '* Cattle and Cattle Breeding," Mr M'Combie of 

 Tillyfour wrote about ten years ago : " Perhaps the Ballindalloch 

 herd of polled cattle are the oldest in tbe north. They have been 

 the talk of the country since my earliest recollections, and were 

 then siiperior to all other stock. The herd has been kept up to 

 its wonted standard, and even raised higher by the present 

 proprietor, by selection from the best herds in the kingdom." 

 Early in the current century the herd at Balliudalloch had 

 attained considerable repute ; and Mr James Mackay, who was 

 overseer upon the estate for forty-one years, well remembers 

 how superior the stock was when he undertook charge of it in 

 1835. There was then no herd-book of black polls, the first 

 being issued in 1862, but many breeders had nevertheless 

 become fully alive to the superior character of the black skins. 

 Sir John Macpherson Grant, father of the present baronet, paid 

 much attention to his herd. An old catalorvue shows that iu 

 1850 lie purchased, at somewhat high figures, two cows at the 

 public Sides at Tillyfour, which did much good service in tlie 

 herd ; but not till 1861, when the present owner of the property 

 came to Ballindalloch, did the herd take a leading position in the 

 countiy. At that time the aurseries of the best cattle were found 

 at Keillor, Mains of Kelly, Southesk, ]\Iains of Ardovie, Balwyllo, 

 Poillethen, Tillyfour, Easter Skene, Montbletton, Mulben, 

 Westertown, and at Ardgay. More improvement had been made 

 at these places than at Ballindalloch. Sir George, however, 

 found a fine foundation to work upon, and turned it to good 

 account. In 1861 he purchased, for 50 guineas, Erica, one of the 

 gems from Lord Southesk's fold. Herself a successful prize- 

 winner, she became the founder of tlie Ballindalloch strain, which 

 in later years took many leading honours at local and national 

 shows. At the Highland Society's show at Aberdeen, last July, 

 where the competition in polled cattle was keener than ever it 

 had been before, no fewer than live of her descendants were in 

 the prize list, some of them very high. Young Viscount, from 

 \)ni\ Konse, the first prize wiimcr in aged bulls, is one of her 

 family ; so is Saint Clair, the v»inner of the two-year-olds at 

 Al)erd«'en, and the one-year-olds at Glasgow. Eva, the pretty 

 cow fn)Ui Ballindallucli, which was second at the simu' show, is a 

 granddaughter of Ju'ica. Of this race there are still some noble 

 animals in the herd. Eisa, Erica's calf of 1867, and the Highland 

 Society's })rize cow of 1871, is still as handsome as eVer, sliowing 

 a deep broad boily on short legs with sweetness of shoulder, neck. 



