2 SHORTHORNS 



A proportion of the farmer-writers might be classed as 

 excellent men in accuracy and range of knowledge, 

 but a number did not have more than the amateur's 

 furnishing in regard to the breeding and feeding of 

 farm stock. The quite fair presumption is that most 

 of the writers acted with the utmost conscientiousness 

 as local historians. With their work we must be 

 content. 



The writer's remit is of modest scope. It confines 

 him to the past and present of the Shorthorn breed of 

 cattle in Central and Southern Scotland. Still, within 

 those boundaries a large amount of interesting historic 

 material is available. It is a debateable point as to 

 who led the way in introducing Shorthorns to 

 Scottish homesteads and pastures. Some claim that 

 General Simson of Pitcorthie, Fifeshire, took Short- 

 horns north into his county between 1780 and 1789. 

 His first authentically recorded purchases are connected 

 with 1789, and he is consequently on a pioneering 

 equality at the least with William Hobertson of Lady- 

 kirk, who laid the foundations of his famous herd in 

 that year. The surprising matter to some modern 

 students is that the work of those two remarkable 

 men should have been so little known even when 

 last century was a decade on its course. 



In his ' Systems of Husbandry adopted in the more 

 Improved Districts of Scotland 7 (1812), Sir John Sin- 

 clair refers to breeds "admirably calculated for fatten- 

 ing," and larger than the Kylo. The Galloway, Fife, 

 Angus, and Buchan cattle are his choice. He compli- 

 ments George Rennie of Phantassie on his " statement 



