34 SHORTHORNS 



prominent buyers were Mr Rennie, Kinblethmont 

 Mains, Mr Hood, and Mr Cobb of Mains, near 

 Dundee. In arable farming, as in many other 

 matters, Mr Cobb was a man of advanced views. 

 One of his most enthusiastic neighbours in Short- 

 horn breeding was Mr Anderson, Carlungie, Monifieth. 



From about 1825 onwards to the early forties a 

 finely - bred herd, founded on Ladykirk blood, was 

 owned by Mr James Rennie, of the Phantassie 

 family, at Kinblethmont Mains, near Arbroath. Mr 

 Rennie did not exhibit extensively, but his cattle 

 were sought after by discriminating breeders. It 

 was at Kinblethmont Mains that the Messrs Cruick- 

 shank acquired a Venus in 1841. 



A few well - bred Shorthorns were kept by the 

 grandfather of the present Earl of Airlie before 1865, 

 but results were rather disappointing. Before that 

 time, and on to the eighties, Mr Robert A. Arklay 

 of Ethiebeaton, Monifieth, was a keen supporter of 

 the Shorthorn interest. Shorthorns had been in pos- 

 session of the Arklay family from the twenties of last 

 century. The Arklays then farmed in North-East 

 Forfarshire. Mr Robert Arklay's most noted bull 

 was Master Toddles (40,331), with which he took the 

 H.G. Card at the Highland. A finer show bull was 

 Annan Water (27,885), which won for him at Perth 

 Highland Society in 1871. Those sixties and seventies 

 were quiet times for the average file of men outside 

 the Booth and Bates camps, and a worse period was 

 ahead, as the Cruickshank star was only faintly 

 twinkling in its ascent. Ethiebeaton at its best was 



