46 IMPROVEMENT OF THE BREED. 



1762 the Englisli supply of salt beef for the Navy had 

 proved insufficient, owing to a visitation of cattle disease 

 in England, and that the deficiency in that and some 

 succeeding j'ears had been made up from Scotland " at 

 the average price of one penny per pound." 



Mr G. Eobertson, in his ' Eural Eecollections,' remarks 

 that in 1740 the largest ox in the county of Kincardine, 

 weighing from 43 to 51 imperial stones, "could have 

 been bought for 20s., or at most, 21s.; " and that by 1764 

 the same class of cattle, " as full fed as the county could 

 make them," would have sold at from £3 to £4 each. It 

 is thus seen that even later than the middle of last 

 century the farmers of the north of Scotland had little or 

 no encouragement to develop the beef-producing proper- 

 ties of their cattle. 



Other circumstances, however, arose which resulted in a 

 marked improvement of the cattle in the north-eastern 

 counties. Throughout these counties, as in other parts of 

 Scotland, a large part of the farm-work was formerly — in 

 some districts even after the opening of the present ceutuiy 

 — accomplished by oxen. The native cattle of the north- 

 east having originally been rather small for the heavier 

 part of this work, the larger farmers obtained their plough- 

 oxen from the south of Scotland, chiefly the Lothians. 

 About the middle of last century the Lothian farmers 

 began to give up cattle-rearing for the growing of wheat 

 and barley. This, together with the general progress of 

 the country following upon the Union and the protracted 

 •wars of the time, raised the price of cattle, and induced 

 the farmers of the north-east to turn their attention to the 

 rearing of their own plough -oxen. The importing of these 

 oxen from the south became decidedly a losing arrange- 

 ment ; and soon after the middle of last century, the more 

 practical landlords, and larger and more enterprising far- 

 mers, commenced the systematic improvement of the 

 native stock, with the view of rearing cattle sufficiently 



