1921.] 



Aberdeen- Angits Cattle. 



693 



packing houses had been and were buying the cattle by the 

 lump, if I may so term it, irrespective of quality: that was not 

 the policy of the Yankee. Quality rules in the Smithfield 

 market, and the aim of the American companies has always 

 been to secure the best clientele there, viz., the meat traders 

 who require the best article and give the highest prices. I 

 paid visits to nearly all the leading packing houses and leading 

 estancias and advocated the production of baby beef, a series 

 of two-year-old bullocks in the place of the 4, 5 and 6-year- 

 old oxen that were so common. Experience of 30 years on the 

 Smithfield market gave the assurance that the uplifting of the 

 Doddy in the appreciation of this great country was on the 

 horizon.' Another feature that made assurance doubly sure 

 was the prospective Show of Fat Cattle, the first of its kind 

 in South America, at which I was invited to sta}^ and judge. A 

 new epoch was opening; the show proved a great success. 

 There were few Doddies exhibited, and the leading honours 

 went to the Shorthorns and Herefords, but it meant salvation 

 to the Aberdeen- Angus, for a fat cattle show without repre- 

 sentatives of the black and comely would be like Shakespeare'^ 

 greatest play, Hamlet, without its sable-clad Prince of Denmark. 



Figures published recently by the Kural Society of Argentina 

 show that the Aberdeen-Angus is now second on the list of the 

 pure-bred herds of the beef cattle of Argentina, the Aberdeen- 

 Angus being more numerous than the Herefords. Pure bred 

 Aberdeen- Angus bulls are sought after for crossing purposes, 

 as no better steers for the butcher can be raised than its cross 

 with the almost universal Shorthorn. The Secretary of the 

 Argentine Angus Society — Senor Eicardo Hogg — has published 

 the fact that in the neighbourhood of Concordia alone, there 

 are now 300,000 black cows. Mr. James Sidey, the oldest 

 exporter of cattle to the Argentine, told me at the Highland 

 Society's Show that he had received from his partner in that 

 country a cablegram advising him to sell all purchases possible 

 at home with the exception of Angus. Such straws show 

 which way the w^ind blows: the demand of the packers there 

 is now for the animal with the maximum of meat for roasting 

 with a minim.um of coarse. 



In an article some years ago* I gave particulars of specimens 

 and measurements of our various cattle of 100 j^ears ago, which 

 then met the requirements of the butchers and the public; but 

 unless one has the engravings and measurements of those 



* Farmer and Stock Breeder Almanac. 



