36 EARLY HISTORY OF ABERDEEN OR ANGUS CATTLE. 



the Aberdeenshire Agricultural Association, as a mark of 

 respect for his upright and honourable conduct in private 

 and public life, and in testimony of the great benefit de- 

 rived by the county of Aberdeen from his meritorious 

 exertions as an eminent cattle-dealer for upwards of fifty 

 years." George Williamson had commenced dealing in 

 cattle about 1770. It thus becomes evident that long 

 before the advent of the present century, there had been 

 a distinct native breed in the lower parts of Aberdeen- 

 shire, possessed not only of such well-defined features as 

 to mark it out as a separate breed, but also of such excel- 

 lent properties as that the most extensive and most ex- 

 perienced cattle-dealer and farmer of the day regarded it 

 as superior to all the other varieties which then existed 

 in the county. It would seem that the Williamsons had 

 taken special care to impress upon Dr Keith their " de- 

 cided " preference for the native low country breed in its 

 purest form. It was the " true native breed unmixed " — 

 the native low country breed — which they so unhesitat- 

 ingly placed above the others. 



Youatt, in his work on cattle, brought out about 1835, 

 gives a great deal of information regarding the different 

 varieties of cattle then existing in Aberdeenshire. Like 

 Dr Keith, he divides them into four classes — namely, 

 " the native unmixed Highland " horned breed, " which 

 he found towards the interior and on the hills ; " the 

 crosses between the native and Fifeshire and other races 

 (which came to be known as the Aberdeenshire horned 

 breed) ; another " variety consisting of all the pure breeds 

 from the north of England and the south of Scotland ; " 

 and the " polled cattle of Buchan." Eegarding the last, 

 he says : " Besides these [the other three classes mentioned 

 above] there is a breed of polled cattle, said by some to 

 be different from the Galloways, and to have existed from 

 time immemorial. Others, however, with greater reason, 

 consider them as the GaUoways introduced about thirty 



