THE FIFESHIRE BREED. 
PLATE XY. 
COW, Six Years Old, the property of J. B. Fernie, Esq. of Kilmux; Bred by Mr Anderson, 
Kinglassie. 
The peninsula of Fife, stretching into the German Ocean, between the noble estuaries of the Forth and Tay, has long been 
possessed of cattle of a larger size than those of the higher countries, and exhibiting such points of resemblance with one an¬ 
other as to have acquired the appellation of a Breed. The existing cattle of Fifeshire, however, do not really constitute a breed or 
family. They are rather a mixture of breeds, the members of which are not so amalgamated with one another as to present a uni¬ 
form class of characters. They vary greatly in size, aspect, and shape. Some have horns, and some are destitute of horns, and 
for the most part they are of coarse angular forms. The prevailing colour is black, or black mixed with white. They are hardy, 
and subsist well on indifferent food, and the Cows are usually good milchers. Like all the races of the lower country termed 
home-breds, they are slow in arriving at maturity, but the muscular substance is well mixed with the fatty; and as they produce 
a good proportion of internal fat, they are much valued by the butchers in the markets to which they are carried. The mixture 
of races which exists in Fifeshire is to be ascribed in part to the locality of the district, intermediate between the northern and 
southern divisions of Scotland, and in part to the condition of its agriculture up to a recent period. On the west|andTiorth-west, 
it lies in contact with a tract of country in which numbers of a very ordinary kind of home-breds are reared, and of which there 
has been long an influx into the richer parts of Fifeshire, for the purpose of being grazed. On the north, again, the country is 
only separated by the Firth of Tay from the breeding county of Forfar, from which numbers of cattle have been introduced; and 
a general favour having existed in Fifeshire for hornless cattle, the Polled Angus Breed has been largely mixed in blood with the 
native stock. The domestic dairy, too, having been extensively cultivated by the numerous smaller possessors of the district, Cows 
have been sought for possessed of the properties of good milchers, without relation to the breed, and thus Calves of a very mixed 
lineage have been continually reared, and mingled with the other varieties. Further, although the county of Fife was early noted 
in the history of Scotland for its populousness, and the number of its towns, its rural population has not until lately been very 
forward to introduce modern improvements. After the glorious peace of 1763, when every branch of industry in Scotland received 
a new impulse, Fife seemed rather to languish. Its fisheries decayed in consequence of the extension of the same branch of in¬ 
dustry elsewhere; its rich mines were not yet sufficiently called into operation, and the population of its numerous towns and 
hamlets showed a tendency to decline, while a long period elapsed before its minutely-divided farms could be so united as to favour 
general improvement. By the commencement of the present century, however, a great change had been effected in the condition 
of this as of other parts of North Britain, but still the improvement of its cattle did not advance in a corresponding degree, or 
rather they had been undergoing deterioration, by a continued departure from the type of the only really pure and valuable breed 
which the country produced. This breed was termed the Falkland, from the ancient royal manor of that name. 
ihe domain of Falkland, situated in the lower part of the vale of Eden, had early merged into the possessions of the power¬ 
ful Earls of Fife, the descendants of that illustrious chief who, as Macduff the Thane, has had a memorial of his name be¬ 
queathed to every age by the creative genius of poetry. In the reign of James I., all the possessions of this ancient family were 
forfeited to the crown for multiplied acts of treason ; and from that period the manor of Falkland, with its noble palace, its woods 
and hunting-grounds, became the favourite retreat of the princes of the House of Stuart. James II. erected into a royal burgh 
the little town of Falkland, because, as the preamble of the charter states, of the frequent residence of the king at the manor of 
Falkland, and of the damage and inconvenience from the want of victuallers, to the prelates, peers, barons, nobles, and others of 
the king’s subjects who came to the Court. Falkland was equally the favourite retreat of his son James III., and of the gay and 
gallant James IV. during the few brief years accorded to him ere he rendered up his crown and life on the bloody field of Flod- 
den. It was the early residence, likewise, of the accomplished James V., who, less happy than his father, died of a broken heart 
at the youthful age of thirty-one; and in more peaceful times it became the frequent residence of his grandson James VI., ere he 
had the happy fortune to unite into one the long-divided realms of Scotland and England. It is from the domains of this ancient 
seat, rendered memorable by the abode of so many princes, that the breed of Falkland cattle beyond a doubt originated. A 
tradition has been handed down, that James IV., when he married Margaret, the daughter of Henry VII. of England, received 
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