54 IMPROVEMENT OF THE BEEED. 



mated at between 130 and 140 Dutch stones. Before 

 being slaughtered, she, like the "Durham Ox," was 

 publicly exhibited for some time. Her purchaser at 

 Smithfield paid £50 for her — a very handsome price for 

 more than half a century ago. She was a round, low-set, 

 compact animal, the symmetry and evenness of her parts 

 having been wonderful. The bone of her fore-leg, which 

 her breeder long kept in his possession, is said to have 

 been little thicker than that of a roe-deer. At the time 

 'she was killed, her brisket was barely 8 inches from the 

 ground, and her inside fat was found to be equal in weight 

 to one- fourth of her gross dead weight. Another wonder- 

 ful animal of Mr Hugh Watson's breeding, " Old Grannie," 

 or the Prima Cow, No. 1 in the 'Polled Herd Book,' is 

 noticed in a subsequent chapter. Mr H. H. Dixon, in 

 ' Pield and Fern,' says Mr Watson gave the Irish a taste 

 of the quality of his earlier polled celebrities. " His four- 

 year-old Angus ox [out of Old Grannie] went over, and 

 was placed first for the Purcell Challenge Cup at Belfast, 

 and yet, strange to say, died after all in the plough at the 

 Eoyal Home Farm, when he was rising eighteen. Still 

 his fame was in all lands, as a traveller in India found 

 his portrait pasted up on a temple of Vishnu." 



Besides Mr Watson, there were in Angus a good many 

 enterprising agriculturists, who at a very early date — some 

 even earlier than Mr Watson — devoted attention to the 

 breeding and improving of the native polled cattle. Pro- 

 minent among these were the late Lord Panmure; the 

 late Sir James Carnegie ; Lord Southesk ; the late Messrs 

 Mustard, Leuchland and Fithie ; the late Mr Bowie, Mains 

 of Kelly, and his son, Mr Alexander Bowie, the present 

 tenant; the late Mr William FuUerton, Mains of Ardestie; 

 the late Mr Euxton, Farnell ; the Hon. Charles Carnegie ; 

 Mr Ferguson, Kinnochtry ; Captain Carnegie of Craigo ; 

 Mr J. Lyell, Shielhill ; the late Mr Scott, Balwyllo ; Mr 

 Lyall, Carcary ; Colonel Dalgairns of Balgavies ; Mr 



