140 CATTLE AND DAIRY FARMING. 



synonymous with that used in Aberdeenshire, where a somewhat siurflar breed were 

 called Bucan Hnmlies. According to Mr. Bernt Petterson,Norwegian consul at Dundee, 

 Polled cattle are very common in the southern parts of Norway, while in Tronso, 

 within the Arctic Circle, they also exist in considerable numbers, as I have been in- 

 formed by Mr. John Neish, who was there in 1879. 



Iceland has also a breed of Polled cattle, noticed by Dr. Uno Von Troil in 1772. He 

 said that in his time the country was well provided with cattle, which were generally 

 without horns, and that their beeves were not largo but very fat and good. It had 

 then been reported by some, though without foundation, that there were none of them 

 with horns, but it was more true to say that such were seldom kept. Mr. Neish, who 

 was in Iceland in the summer of 1881, says that the cattle there still agree with this 

 description, It is reasonable to suppose that both the Icelandic and Scotch breeds 

 were originally derived from the Norwegian ; but, on the other hand, it cannot be 

 denied that the same natural law of variation that produced hornless cattle in Nor- 

 way, or where the Norwegian breed originated, could act on any breed. In addition 

 to the Angus and Buchan Polls, now to some extent intermixed 'in all the best herda, 

 there are two other British breeds of Polled cattle, viz, the Galloway, in the south of 

 of Scotland, and the Norfolk and Suffolk Red Polls. The Galloway had enough re- 

 semblance to the Angus breed to have been included with it in the early volumes of 

 the Polled Herd-Book, but each has now a herd-book of its own. The Norfolk and 

 Suffolk breed is said to have originated chiefly from a mixture of Scotch Polls with 

 the Old Horned breed of cattle of these counties. 



Coming to historical evidence of cattle breeding in Angus, the earliest I know of is 

 that contained in Oehterlony's description of the shire in 1684-'85. He says : 



"Great abundance of cattle, sheep, and horses, especially the brae (hill) country, who 

 have great breeds of cattle; and in all the laigli (low) country for the most part, 

 except in somo few places where they are short of grass, all breed as many as suffi- 

 ciently serve themselves, but the chief breeds in the sliyre are the Earls of Strath mo re, 

 Southesk, Panmure, and Edzell, Powrio, Balnamoone, both for horses and cattle. 



"Both these parishes, Kinnaird and Farnell, belong entirely to the Earl of Southesk, 

 wherein are ane excellent breed of horse, cattle, and sheep. 



And, when writing of the Earl of Panmure, he says: 



" He hath at Panmure a most excellent breed of horse and cattle." 



Thus there is evidence that cattle were careftrfly bred in Angus two hundred years 

 ago, and although it cannot bo ascertained from any record at my disposal that these 

 excellent breeds were polled or dodded, it is probable from the sequel that they were 

 so; at least, those who have asserted that no particular attention was given to cattle 

 breeding in Angus before the beginning of the present century are certainly wrong. 



The late Mr. William Fullerton, whose name will be always associated with the 

 improved breed of Angus cattle, left a report on the subject, in which ho says that the 

 Lord Panmure who succeeded to the estates in 1787, in his sixteenth year, was tae lirst 

 to try to improve the Polled cattle of the county, and that ho always showed much 

 favor for them, oven during his minority. He tried the experiment of crossing the 

 Galloway and Angus cattle, but the result was unsatisfactory, and this line of breed- 

 ing was at once abandoned. Ho afterwards was successful in his efforts in another 

 direction, but in the mean time the late Mr. Hugh Watson, of Keillor, 011 entering 

 that farm, in 1808, at once began a systematic experiment of the Angus Doddies in 

 which he was so eminently successful that his name is now regarded as the chief one 

 in connection with pedigree stock of this variety. His father, who had bred these 

 cattle before him, gave him six of his best and blackest cows and a bull on entering 

 Keillor, which he soon afterwards increased by the purchase of ten heifers and a bull 

 at Trinity Market, Brechin. These heifers came from the parish of Farnell, where the 

 Earl of Southesk had an excellent breed of cattle about one hundred and twenty 

 years previously, and the bull was from Scryne, near Arbroath. From this stock Mr. 

 Watson produced the Angus Doddies, which made his name famous throughout the 

 country. 



The improved Angus cattle had reached such a degree of perfection in 1848, that 

 the judges of the Highland and Agricultural Society's show held that year at Edin- 

 burgh expressed the opinion that "the highly improved portion of this much famed 

 breed is not surpassed by any other description of cattle, in the equal way in which 

 the fat is mixed and diffused over every part of the animal, or in yielding to the 

 butcher a greater quantity of prime meat in proportion to the weight of the carcass." 



In conclusion, I may say that I think it a great mistake to confine them to one 

 color black. They were formerly of many colors besides, such as black with brown 

 muzzles and brown streaked backs, red, yellow, and brindled. Long as they have 

 been bred to black, they still throw reds and yellows, which are discarded as unfash- 

 ionable, while, as every breeder of domestic animals knows, off-colored and mis- 

 marked produce is often the best in other respects. Variety of color is pleasing to the 

 eye, and if the ignorant idea that red and yellow Polls show impurity of blood were 

 got rid of, herds mixed in color would soon be common and admired. 



