AGRICULTURE IN SCOTLAND — 179I-1796. 85 



Aberdeenshire has as yet received no distinguishing name, 

 yet much attention is paid to the shape and appearance of 

 them ; as fine looking, handsome cattle are sure to bring a 

 much better price than clumsy cross made beasts of the 

 same size. The original cattle in this district, especially in 

 Buchan, were very small ; but, since the introduction of 

 turnips and sown grasses, a great change in that respect is 

 perceptible : a beast of one year old that has had turnips 

 is found to be equal in size to what the same creature would 

 have been at two years old on its former dry, stinted food.' 

 The only distinctive reference made by Dr Anderson to any 

 particular breed of cattle is in the note he gives respecting 

 a dairy which had been established at Invercauld by Mr 

 Farquharson, ' who, by careful selection of the best indivi- 

 duals of the Highland breed of cattle, had brought them to 

 a beauty of form and tendency to fatten that gave great 

 satisfaction to the best judges, w^hile both as to quantity and 

 quality the milk was superior.' ' These cows,' he goes on 

 to say, ' were originally of the Highland breed, and were 

 crossed about the year 1748 with the Falkland Fifeshire 

 breed, which made the cows larger, while the milk retained 

 its original richness.' Mr Wight, in his Survey of the 

 County, made in 1779, says he admired an English bull, 

 Shorthorned, belonging to Mr Udny of Udny. He goes on 

 to say — ' His cows are good, some from England, some from 

 Berwickshire, and some the very best of his own country 

 breed. He rejects the Lancaster breed, and all that have 

 long horns.' Miss Eraser of Inverallochie, who managed 

 for her brother the farm of Knockhall, belonging to Mr 

 Udny of Udny, writing to Mr Wight in answer to questions, 

 says — * We have the best sort of the Northumberland cows, 

 and I believe them to be as good a kind as any, but I have 

 had no experience of any other.'* The breed of sheep in the 



* Mr George Stodart, lately farmer in Culter-Culleii, Foveran, now 

 (January 1879) in his 97th year, and who made his first purchase of cattle in 

 1801, in a communication to the author, says — 'There were at the beginning 

 of the century both Polled and horned cattle in Buchan, but the horned cattle 

 were mostly in the Highlands of Aberdeenshire. The horned and Polled were 

 mixed in the low districts. The biggest market was Aikey Fair, and there 



