384 
The 3Ianagement of a Shorthorn Herd. 
some of the more distant heights, notably Lochnagar, still shone 
out with glistening whiteness in the sun. I need scarcely sa^-, 
therefore, that the climate in spring is very severe, but may add 
that the nights become cold also early in autumn. The following 
table of averages of temperature and rainfall at Aberdeen for the 
twenty-two years 1857-78, inclusive, will give some general idea 
of the climate, although it does not record the extent of snowfall 
nor the lowest temperatures of the winter months : — 
Temperature. 
Inches 
Rainfall. 
dumber 
of Days 
on which 
Rain 
falls. 
Mean. 
Mean 
Day. 
Mean 
Night. 
371 
41-8 
32 
4 
2 
71 
21 
February 
37-9 
43-1 
32 
8 
2 
31 
19 
39-6 
45-2 
34 
1 
2 
32 
22 
April 
• 44-0 
50-7 
37 
4 
2 
18 
17 
48-3 
55-2 
41 
4 
1 
85 
20 
June 
55-0 
62-6 
47 
4 
1 
99 
18 
July 
57-5 
65-0 
50 
0 
2 
47 
20 
56-5 
63-5 
49 
5 
3 
31 
21 
September 
52-7 
59-2 
46 
2 
3 
06 
21 
46-5 
52-4 
40 
6 
3 
19 
22 
November 
40-3 
45-6 
35 
1 
3 
52 
22 
December 
38-2 
43-1 
33 
3 
3 
42 
21 
Total .. .. 
32 
33 
244 
Almost all Shorthorns in the north of Scotland are owned 
by tenant-farmers who hold their farms under nineteen years' 
leases. The principal object in view, as I have intimated, is to 
produce sires which in turn are capable of producing bullocks 
apt to mature at an early age, and to carry a great weight of 
flesh. Style, accordingly, is not so much desired as a short- 
legged, fine - boned, heavy carcass. Milking qualities are 
admitted to be highly important, for this if for no other 
reason — that a good milking cow will give her calf a better 
start in life than a cow that can barely rear her offspring, and 
a good impulse to early growth is of excellent effect in the later 
development of the animal ; and not only of the single animal, 
but of its descendants, inasmuch as propensities gradually 
called into existence by means of food and management, and 
artificially maintained and increased through several generations, 
become hereditary. In Aberdeenshire, however, while the value 
of milking properties is freely allowed, everything is secondary 
to heavy flesh. 
The land in Aberdeenshire is very various, but principally 
light and gravelly, forming undulating banks of dry porous 
