The Management of a Sliorthorn Herd. 
383 
to those gentlemen not immediately connected with Shorthorn 
herds of the present time, who have kindly and promptly 
responded to my requests for information. 
Aberdeenshire. 
In no part of the United Kingdom has the Shorthorn become 
more eminently the great rent-paying breed of a large district 
than in Aberdeenshire ; and in no part of the United Kingdom, 
therefore, has the management of Shorthorn herds taken a more 
thoroughly business-like turn. The county of Aberdeen has 
long supplied a large proportion of the beef consumed in 
London ; 1 believe that proportion has amounted to as much as 
one-seventh of the entire supply of the metropolis ; and this 
beef is mainly that of Shorthorns or Shorthorn crosses. This 
vast trade arose from the excellence of the cattle introduced by 
Captain Barclay, of Ury, about fifty years ago, and the extra- 
ordinary power of the Ury bulls as improvers of the stock of 
the district, for grazing purposes, when crossed either with the 
pure-bred cattle of the district, or with cows of a mongrel or 
nondescript class ; also from the fact that the soil of the district, 
when w'ell manured with bones, produces a peculiarly good 
quality of turnip, and that the oat-straw is also of a more feeding 
character than that grown in many localities : hence there is 
an unusually large supply of good and cheap food for winter 
fattening. The Scottish farmer, keenly alive to any new source 
of profit, recognised in the heavy-fleshed, kindly thriving, early 
maturing Shorthorns oi" " the Captain," as he is to this day 
called, the means of turning the immediate produce of his land 
into more valuable human food. The demand for beef stimu- 
lated the demand for Shorthorn bulls, and the agriculture of a 
very large area, in course of years, became adapted to the pro- 
duction of fat steers and heifers of as good quality, as great 
weight, and as little ofFal as could be reared in the shortest 
possible time. Upon the feeding of cattle the farmers now 
principally depend ; and animals bred in the district, and of 
good quality, are fed off at twenty-four to twenty-six months old. 
These circumstances should be borne in mind in a survey of 
Aberdeenshire management. The climate of this, as of every 
other district, must also be taken into account in considering 
the treatment of cattle through the various seasons of the year. 
In the depth of a severe winter the country has almost an Arctic 
aspect. Sledging is a frequent mode of locomotion. The snow- 
clad hills, indeed, retain their covering until far into the spring, 
or even the early summer ; and when I visited Aberdeenshire in 
the middle of May, although the immediate district was clear, 
