CHAPTER XXIX 



THE ABERDEEN ANGUS 



The native home of the Aberdeen Angus breed of cattle is in 

 northeastern Scotland, especially in the counties of Aberdeen, 

 Kincardine, and Forfar. In southern Aberdeen, in the Buchan 

 district, the breed was long known as " Buchan humlies," while 

 in the section of Forfar known as Angus these cattle were called 

 " Angus Doddies." The words "humle " and " dodded " are the 

 Scotch terms for polled or hornless. This section of Scotland is 

 north of 56 and lies about a thousand miles north of the latitude 

 of Chicago. The climate is rather damp and cold much of the 

 time. The land is hilly or mountainous in the main, much of it 

 being better suited to grazing than anything else, though roots, 

 oats, and hay are quite extensively produced. 



The origin of the Aberdeen Angus is purely speculative. 

 Among the wild white cattle of Britain were polled animals, and 

 the Aberdeen Angus may have descended from these. Some of 

 the Scotch writers incline to the belief that this breed is a sport 

 from a black breed with horns, which formerly existed in Scot- 

 land. Hornless cattle have been known in Scotland for long over 

 a century. In an account book kept by a Mr. Graham record 

 is made June 9, 1752, of purchasing a two-year-old heifer "doded." 

 The first printed reference to hornless cattle in Angus is dated 

 1797 in the Old Statistical Account of the parish of Bendochy, 

 where it is said of 1229 cattle in the parish "many of them are 

 dodded, wanting horns." Youatt, about 1835, wrote "that there 

 have always been polled cattle in Angus," and states that attention 

 was first directed to them by enterprising farmers about 1775. 

 Mr. William Forbes of Aberdeenshire, writing Macdonald and 

 Sinclair over thirty years ago, mentions two sorts of polled cattle 

 common in Buchan about the beginning of the last century. One 

 of these was a rather small, puny type, thin-fleshed, such as the 



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