SITTYTON TO ABERDEEN. 151 



With a candour so rare that it deserves mention, he 

 still expressed a doubt whether Mr. M'Combie's big 

 black of '63 should not have "beaten that red there 33 

 at Aberdeen ; and when his Poissy recollections were 

 evoked, he spoke in concise and appropriate rapture 

 of certain Boulogne cookery. 



The Formartine, Ellon, Buchan, Alford, and 

 Garioch districts may be said to have about thirty 

 leading feeders, averaging, with the exception of 

 Mr. M'Combie's, from about forty to seventy bul- 

 locks each. In old days, when they were entirely 

 dependent on the Aberdeen butchers' custom, four 

 to six was thought a spirited venture. They all 

 breed as well as buy, and finish them off their third 

 Christmas at about 30 a-piece. Doddies are very 

 rare in their lots ; and Mr. Bruce of Mill Hill is the 

 only one who has imported the white faces from 

 Hereford fair. Within the last forty years turnips 

 have increased a hundred-fold, and swedes in a still 

 greater ratio since the time of the foot-and-mouth 

 plague in '39. In fact, steam and bone-dust have 

 worked quite a beef revolution. At first only very 

 few turnips were grown on the North-East coast, and 

 the farmers attempted to feed a portion of their 

 cattle. They had, however, attained no proficiency 

 in feeding science, and no method as to the times of 

 feeding or the quantity of turnips to be used ; cattle 

 men had double work in consequence, and the beasts 

 grew in years, but not in weight. Drovers came in 

 the spring, and generally took them off to Barnet 



