86 CHAEACTEEISTICS OF THE BREED. 



Since the rage for "young beef" became so strong as it 

 now is, a great many polled cattle have been fed off when 

 from twenty-four to thirty months old; and at that age 

 good animals bring from £25 to £35, a few even exceeding 

 the latter sum. In the London Christmas market, choice 

 three-year-old black polled bullocks bring from £40 to 

 £48, and even in some cases over £80. In some years the 

 late Mr M'Combie of Tillyfour obtained an average of 

 more than £50 a-head for his best lot in the Smithfield 

 market, and he sometimes exceeded £44 a-head all over. 

 Great weights have been reached by specially good animals. 

 Mr M'Combie's celebrated ox Black Prince — the champion 

 of 1867 already mentioned — came within a fraction of a 

 ton in dead weight ; while his prize ox at Poissy in 1857 

 weighed 2728 lb. at the age of 4 years and 4 months. A 

 prize bull bred by Mr M'Combie, and the sire of one of 

 the Tillyfour prize oxen at Poissy in 1862, was slaughtered 

 at the age of two years, and his dead weight exceeded 

 14 cwt. The champion heifer Beauty, bred by Mr 

 William Brown, Linkwood, Elgin, and the winner of many 

 show-yard honours to Mr James Eeid, Greystone, Mr John 

 Cran, Kirkton, and others, was found to weigh, when 

 slaughtered at the age of four years, more than 16 cwt. 

 Two prize polled oxen bred by Mr Stephen, Conglass, 

 weighed 16^ cwt. each in the carcass, and were sold at 

 £80 and £75 respectively. The prices obtained in 

 the London Christmas market afford a fair indication of 

 the weights of the best class of polled bullocks when fully 

 fattened. Some years ago, cattle intended for that great 

 market were kept till three and a half or four years old — 

 in certain cases even longer — and then 11, 12, and 13 cwt. 

 (dead weight) were common weights. Now the majority 

 average from thirty to thirty-four months, and at that age 

 the dead weight generally ranges from 7 to 8 or 9 cwt. 

 Some choice animals even exceed 10 cwt. ; and the average 

 of good well-finished thirty-month bullocks would be from 



