AGRICULTURE IN THE NORTH-EAST TT. 
XI. 
AGRICULTURE IN THE NORTH-EAST 
BY 
pe LOCHER, Disc, 0.6. 
GENERAL Review.—Aberdeen occupies a unique position among the 
counties of Scotland from the point of view of agriculture. The county 
has the highest acreage under cultivation of all Scottish counties, and also 
the highest acreage in each of the following crops, namely : oats, turnips 
and rotational grasses. It has the greatest number of horses, cattle 
and pigs of any county in Scotland. Of the total 621,000 acres in use 
for agricultural purposes 49 per cent. is in rotational grass, 29 per cent. 
in corn crops (oats, 28 per cent.), 12 per cent. in turnips, 8} per cent. in 
permanent grass, 1} per cent. in potatoes and } per cent. in other crops. 
It is also the county of small holdings. Over 58 per cent. are holdings 
of 50acresandless. Only 1-4 percent.are over 300 acres. The following 
table shows the number of tenants with holdings of various sizes. 
Table 
Acres Number Tenants 
Above Under of tenants per cent. 
r 15 35543 34°61 
15 50 2,435 23°79 
50 100 25245 21°93 
100 150 1,004 9°81 
150 300 867 - 8-46 
300 143 1°40 
10,237 100*00 
Aberdeenshire has 570,000 acres arable land, of which 170,000 are in 
oats, 75,000 in turnips, and 300,600 in rotational grass. Perth is second 
in oats with 58,000 acres, and Angus second in turnips with 28,000 acres. 
The latest available figures show over 23,600 horses and over 173,000 
head of cattle in the county of Aberdeen, or 16 and 14 per cent., respectively, 
of the numbers for Scotland. Although there are over 400,000 sheep in 
the county, Aberdeen occupies only the sixth place as a sheep county. 
Feeding and breeding are characteristic of Aberdeenshire. ‘Turnips, 
straw and ensilage (augmented where necessary by concentrated feeding 
stuffs such as linseed and cotton cake) are used for feeding and preparing 
cattle for the market. Over a million tons of turnips are produced and 
