62 IMPROVEMENT OF THE BEEED. 



more jealously than ever the purity of the polled race. 

 The men who had taken the lead in preserving the Angus 

 doddies are mentioned in an earlier portion of this 

 chapter. 



In the county of Aberdeen, one man, the late Mr Wil- 

 liam M'Combie of Tillyfour, M.P., stands ahead of all 

 others as the great deliverer of the polled race. He was 

 among the first to discover its threatened extinction; and 

 knowing full well its value to the country, he resolved to 

 do what in him lay to protect it from the danger to which 

 it had become exposed. It is doubtful, we think, whether 

 any other single individual has ever done more to improve 

 and popularise any breed of live stock than the late Mr 

 M'Combie did to improve and make known his pet race of 

 polled cattle. Taking up the good work so systematically 

 commenced by Mr Hugh Watson, Mr William M'Combie 

 carried it on with a skill and success that have few equals, 

 and that will hand down his name to posterity as that of 

 the chief improver of the polled Aberdeen or Angus breed. 

 It has been said that what the Collings did for Shorthorns, 

 Mr Hugh Watson did for the polled breed. It might be 

 said with equal truth that what the Booths have been to 

 the "red, white, and roan," Mr William M'Combie was to 

 the "glossy blacks." Than that, higher credit could be 

 paid to no breeder of live stock ; and every one who has 

 any acquaintance with the subject will admit that it is due 

 to the memory of the late Laird of Tillyfour. 



Mr M'Combie was born at Tillyfour in 1805, and died 

 in the spring of 1880. His father, who owned the small 

 estate of Tillyfour, was for many years one of the leading 

 cattle-dealers in the north of Scotland ; and young Mr 

 M'Combie, before he had completed his " teens," also 

 devoted himself to trading in cattle. About 1829 he 

 became tenant of the farm of Tillyfour, and immediately 

 after he gave up dealing in lean stock, and commenced 

 the formation of a polled herd. It would seem that his 



