HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 177 



bred is, in view of the facts, impossible to 

 doubt. Among the more notable of the living 

 breeders of Short-horn cattle Mr. Amos Cruick- 

 shank, of Aberdeenshire, holds a .prominent 

 place. He shares with the Messrs. Colling, 

 Booth, and Bates the honor of having formed a 

 distinct type within the breed, and of having 

 given to this type his own name, so that the 

 expression "Cruickshank cattle" is quite as 

 familiar today as " Booth bred" or as " Bates 

 strain." He stands .as sponsor to a type that 

 has been steadily growing in popularity in 

 Great Britain and America for a number of 

 years past, and as an admirable example of a 

 more recent breeder than those already named, 

 who has fallen under the same temptation to 

 which they were subjected, of making a close 

 sub-breed of his cattle. Some account of his 

 breeding methods has seemed likely to further 

 illustrate this subject. 



It is now more than fifty years since Mr. 

 Cruickshank began his career as a breeder. 

 That beginning was of the most modest kind. 

 In 1837 he made a trip to Durham and took 

 back with him to Scotland a single Short-horn 

 heifer. He was then a young man. The son 

 of a farmer in the neighborhood of Inverarie, 

 he had inherited the sturdy Scotch character, 

 and had been brought up in the rather stern 

 school of Scotch agricultural experience. About 



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