1 52 POLLED BREEDS 



and texture of all the meat are especially fine. During his first 

 year the Aberdeen Angus is perhaps not very fast-growing, 

 but later he fully makes up any deficiency in size; he is not a 

 particularly large feeder, but is credited with great powers 

 of digesting coarse or inferior fodder. On the famous north- 

 country turnips and oat-straw cattle of this breed are reputed 

 to thrive and grow amazingly. When mated with good speci- 

 mens of almost any other beef-breeds, superb beef-making 

 cross-breds are the result. 



Yet with all these points to their credit, Aberdeen Angus 

 bulls do not monopolize the market when buyers want sires 

 to improve, or to maintain, the beefing qualities of great herds 

 of cows ; this is especially the case when the troops of females 

 are inferior, or unimproved, stock. What makes this the more 

 surprising is that specimens of the breed have carried off the 

 Championship at innumerable public exhibitions all over the 

 world in competition against animals of other breeds. Perhaps 

 the explanation of the Aberdeen Angus bull not being in greater 

 demand is that he has not the power of stamping quality and 

 quick growth on his offspring when mated with cattle inclined 

 to be thin-fleshed and slow-growing. This conjecture is sup- 

 ported by the evidence, frequently to be seen, of bunches of 

 very inferior store cattle evidently begotten by bulls of the 

 breed. Such evidence, however, is liable to be misleading for 

 the following reasons: the best first-cross stores are so much 

 appreciated that they very frequently pass from one owner to 

 another by private sale, and the absence of such rarities of 

 the trade from the public markets may make the misfits all 

 the more prominent to the eye. The strange thing about this 

 failing, if there be such a failing, is that the breed itself has 

 a very great propensity for piling on fat. Aberdeen Angus cows 

 or heifers more often fail to breed through getting excessively 

 fat than any other breed I know; at any rate this is the cause 

 given for their failure, and certainly appearances often confirm 

 such a view. That there are good milkers among cows of the 

 breed is undoubted, and on the whole one is driven to the con- 

 clusion {hat the factors which go to make up this wonderful 

 breed ought to be thoroughly investigated with a view to making 



