1921.] 



Aberdeen-Angus Cattle. 



G89 



ABERDEEN-ANGUS CATTLE. 



J. J. Cridlax. 



Historical Notes. — The rise of this breed to its present pre- 

 eminence is probably the most remarkable of any of our 

 domestic bovine species. The breed is indigenous to the districts 

 which are still its headquarters, the North Eastern Counties of 

 Scotland, Aberdeen and Forfar (Angus) being its chief 

 centres. The precise date at which organic changes have 

 given us the Aberdeen-Angus polled breed remains a mystery, 

 but there is documentary evidence to prove there were in Aber- 

 deenshire cattle without horns more than 400 years ago. The 

 current belief that the native cattle of Aberdeenshire have been 

 black and hornless, time out of mind, is confirmed by a legal 

 document in Vol. Ill, p. 344, of the Spalding Club Antiquities of 

 the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff. It describes the ceremony 

 observed in putting John Cumyng, of Culter, Aberdeen, into pos- 

 session of his deceased father's property in 1523. Till 1845, 

 when a property changed owners by death or purchase, sasine or 

 actual possession was given by the Crown or the Superior to the 

 new owner by delivering to him, on the ground, a handful of 

 earth as a symbol of the soil of the property, and a stone as a 

 symbol of the building on it. This was called giving " yird and 

 stane." At an earlier period, when land was held by personal 

 military service, the Crown, before accepting a new owner, 

 claimed a money payment called " relief " from an heir and 



composition " from a purchaser. This made sasine-giving a 

 more important function than it was after the abolition of mili- 

 tary service tenure. 



In the case mentioned, sasine was given by an officer of the 

 Sheriff of Aberdeen called the mayor of fee," and it was 

 .effected by John Cumyng selecting and accepting " unum bovem 

 nigiTim hommyll " — a black hummel (hornless) ox — valued at 

 40s. 8d. Scots. It had represented a plough ox, of which there 

 were at the time eight in the plough team, and indicated John 

 Cumyng's right to cultivate the ground. Being a symbol, and 

 being selected, it is plain that it was of the kind of oxen common 

 and most esteemed in the country at the time, and also that this 

 had been a long established custom. 



That progressive Society, The Smithfield Club, did not till 

 1892 consider this breed to be sufficiently important to allot it a 

 separate classification, notwithstanding the fact that Mr. William 



