354 
Polled Aberdeen and Angus Cattle. 
the present century the cattle trade of Aberdeenshire had 
assumed considerable proportions ; and one of the leading cattle 
markets in the county was the great Aikey Fair held in Buchan, 
where local and southern dealers attended in large numbers and 
bought cattle for England and for some parts of the south of 
Scotland. In several works we find it stated, on the authority of 
well-known Aberdeenshire cattle-dealers who had attended 
Aikey Fair early in the century, that a large proportion of the 
stock exposed at that market were Buchan humlies, or crosses 
between them and various horned breeds. They all speak of 
the popularity of the native Buchan breed, describing it as 
smaller but of better quality than the crosses and other cattle 
shown. In his recently issued ' History of the Highland and 
Agricultural Society,' Mr. Ramsay gives an extract from a 
communication he had received from Mr. George Stodart, 
"lately farmer in Culter-Cullen, Foveran, now (January 1879) 
in his 97th year, and who made his first purchase of cattle in 
1801." Mr. Stodart says "there were at the beginning of the 
century both polled and horned cattle in Buchan, but the horned 
cattle were mostly in the Highlands of Aberdeenshire. The 
horned and polled were mixed in the low districts. The 
biggest market was Aikey Fair, and there was another market, 
Kepple Market, in New Machar. At Aikey Fair about one 
half of the cattle were polled and one half were horned, but they 
were all of the Aberdeenshire breed." The writer of some 
interesting notes on the early history of the polled breeds, which 
appeared last spring in the ' Banffshire Journal,' gives a great 
deal of evidence in reference to the existence of polled cattle in 
Aberdeenshire about the end of the last century and beginning of 
the present. He says: "The late Mr. John Marr, Cairnbrogie, 
Tarves, commenced to breed Buchan polled stock in 1810, and 
exhibited animals of this breed at the Highland Society's Shows 
at Aberdeen in 1834 and Dundee in 1843. The late Mr. 
George Stodart, Culter-Cullen, Udney (born September 1783 ; 
died June 1830) [father of Mr. George Stodart already quoted], 
bred Polled Aberdeenshire cattle, commencing in l8l2. The 
forefathers of Mr. Barclay, now in Strocherie, bred Aberdeenshire 
cattle at Auchmull, King-Edward, for more than two hundred 
years, most of their animals being polled." The late Mr. 
William Strachan, Ardmeallie, who was an extensive breeder of 
cattle early in the century, states that in 1835 he purchased a 
Shorthorn bull to cross with his stock of cows, which " consisted 
generally of Buchan Hummel, the Aberdeen Horned, or a mixture 
of these breeds." Mr. William Anderson, Wellhouse, Alford, 
in a communication to me (dated 13th April, 1881), says : " My 
father and uncle farmed land in the Vale of Alford in the end 
