204 Report on some features of Scottish Agriculture. 
sound judgment ; and if the allurements of sliows are avoided, 
Mr. M'Combie finds it comparatively easy to produce breeding 
animals that will pay, and will exhibit very fine quality. 
The system he has adopted, except in cases of show pets, 
is to give them good grass during the summer, and during 
the ensuing winter to keep them on unlimited oat-straw and a 
fair supply of turnips. It is essential to keep them in good 
growing condition without a check, but, at the same time, to 
guard against their laying on too much flesh. Open straw-yards, 
in the winter, are thought best both for young breeding cattle and 
for store beasts to be grassed the next summer ; and a covered 
yard is therefore regarded as an abomination. The principle 
of treatment of store or breeding animals is to avoid making 
the high-bred heifers valuable to the butcher ; and, as it is 
well known that they have a great tendency to lay on fat if 
well fed, it behoves the farmer to work accordingly, for servants 
in charge of high-bred stock seem to take a pride in over- 
feeding them. Heifers are not put to the bull until fully two years 
old, as the polled Angus females become stunted in growth and 
otherwise deteriorated if used before they arrive at that age. In- 
and-in breeding is also found to produce a diminution in size 
and delicacy of constitution, although it undoubtedly produces 
finer quality, as Mr. M'Combie has shown in his work already 
quoted.* 
2. Feeding Beasts. — Between 300 and 400 head of cattle are 
fed off between October and March, the number varying with 
the weight of the turnip crop and the luxuriance of the grass 
and seeds. About fifty of these beasts are bred and wintered on 
the farms, and the remainder are bought in Morayshire in March 
and April, arriving at all times up to the beginning of May. 
After arrival, they are kept on the remnant of the swede crop, 
or, in default of that, on hay and cake, in sufficient quantity to 
prevent their losing condition, until the grass is ready. This is 
not until from the 10th to the loth of the month, although a 
certain breadth of first-year's seeds on each farm is top-dressed 
with from 2 to 3 cwt. per acre of sulphate of ammonia, dissolved 
bones, or guano, for the purpose of providing an early bite for 
these beasts. From about the 15th until the 20th of May, the 
cattle begin to go on ordinary first-year's seeds, where they remain 
for two or three weeks, when they are removed for a change of bite 
to a piece of two-year-old seeds, or an old pasture. It is considered 
an essential part of good grazing to give beasts a clean pasture and 
fresh grass at frequent intervals, say once a fortnight at farthest. 
In July, seeds begin to fail, and without the assistance of old 
* ' Cattle and Cattle-breeders,' p. 104. 
