690 



Aberdeen- Angus Cattle. 



[Nov., 



McCombie, the great deliverer " of Aberdeen- Angus Cattle as 

 he has been aptly called, in 1867 brought the great Doddy Ox 

 " Black Prince " south, and swept away all the leading cham- 

 pionship honours from the Birmingham and Smithfield Shows, 

 whence nt Her Majesty the Queen's expressed desire, it was 

 forwarded to Windsor for her inspection. Like Saul, William 

 McCombie was head and shoulders above his compeers. Bom at 

 Tillyfour in 1805, he died in 1880. He carried on the work of 

 the pioneer, Hugh Watson of Keillor : what Collin gs did for the 

 Shorthorn, the latter did for the Aberdeen- Angus. In his work 

 " Cattle and Cattle Breeders," William T^IcCombie pays generous 

 testimony to his excellence: "Amongst those who have dis- 

 tinguished themselves as breeders of Aberdeen and Angus polled 

 cattle, the late Hugh Watson deserves to be put in the front 

 rank. We all look upon him as the first gi'eat improver and no 

 one will question his title to that distinction. There is no herd 

 in the country which is not indebted to Keillor blood." 



Previously to his great successes above mentioned, McCombie 

 had in 1856, 1857 and 1862 won every first prize for Aberdeen- 

 Angus breeding and fat cattle awarded by the French Govern- 

 ment at its International Shows, including the Fat Stock 

 Championship of the World. It was not, however, till 1878 

 that McCombie reached the zenith of his fame as a breeder 

 and feeder, by his triumph over all breeds at the Paris Inter- 

 national Exhibition, where a prize of £100 was offered by the 

 French Government for the best animals for breeding purposes 

 bred by the exhibitor in the section of animals other than 

 French. For this trophy, there competed representatives of 

 the Aberdeen-Angus, Shorthorn, Hereford, Devon, Sussex, 

 Ayrshire, Highland, Norfolk, Kerry, Dutch, Flemish, Danish, 

 Berne Fribourg, Swiss, Piedmontese and Portuguese breeds — 

 surely the most representative groups of the breeds of the world 

 ever gathered together. The prize was awarded to McCombie' s 

 group, with the group of Sir George ]McPherson Grant second: 

 the Aberdeen- Angus thus providing the champion and reserve 

 champion winners. More honours, how^ever, fell to the lot of 

 the Doddies of Aberdeenshire. The only occasion on which 

 British and French cattle had any opportunity of testing their 

 respective merits was in the competition for the d9100 prize for 

 the best group of beef producing animals, bred by the exhibitor. 

 The adjudicating bench was comprised of 31 members of the 

 various breeds, and by a majority of 24 to 7 the Aberdeenshire 

 group triumphed. It should be noted afferdiag another 



