302 SHORTHORNS 



mixed woodlands with their alleys and sinuous foot- 

 ways, along which a stranger could get delightedly 

 lost, and well beyond there were the background and 

 half-flanking of hill and mountain country from the 

 Ochils to Ben Ledi and around by Ben Venue to Ben 

 Lomond. Best of all in a certain sense, the home 

 farm, with its roomy comfortable steading, gentle 

 slopes, and not unduly large fields, was easily reached, 

 and there Sir James had pure delights in talks with 

 the ever perfectly natural George Michie, the herds- 

 man, to whom the cattle were never mere animals 

 but "weel-deen" (well-doing) subjects or the reverse. 

 " Cows all settled, George ? " " Weel, Sir James, I'm 

 no maistly sure o' them a'. I wid pardon that heifer 

 there, the cratur ; she's near sookit to daith be a 

 muckle bul-calf. But look at that jaud there wi' a' 

 her abeelity an' just sookin' a bit heiferie thingie. 

 Dagond I'm no sure o' her yet." The exposition of 

 George's system of bovine morals was more to Sir 

 James than was the clotted cream to the wild men in 

 Lorna Doone's country. To his favourite calves, which 

 were not fully appreciated by certain judges, George 

 could be confidential and consolatory. " Never ye 

 mind," he would say to some junior, "ye'll be a 

 gey bul some day, my mannie, whaever leeves to 

 see't." 



It was in 1905 that Mr John C. Wilson, the estate 

 agent, began to select foundation stock for the Tulli- 

 allan herd. His purchases were the noted Eliza show 

 cow Ella from Mr James M' William, then of Stoney- 

 town ; a Bra with Bud and a Nonpareil from Mr 



