30 
THE OX. 
THE FIFE SHIRE BREED. 
along with the dowry of his youthful queen, a present of 300 English Cows, which were conveyed to the park of Falkland, whence 
their descendants spread into the neighbouring country. There is nothing inconsistent with probability in this tradition; although 
the Falkland Breed appears to be of foreign origin. It resembles the Black Dairy Breed of the Low Countries, common in the 
dairies of Holland; and therefore, if brought from England, it must have been an imported race, though not the less likely, on 
that account, to have been deemed a gift worthy a royal prince. It may rather, however, have been brought directly from the 
countries that produced it. Fifeshire, like all the rest of the east of Scotland, early received numerous colonies of Flemings, 
and had carried on with the opposite continent such an intercourse as the limited commerce of these rude times admitted. The 
Flemings and Hollanders were even at this early period known for their Cows, and it is altogether probable that some of these 
animals were brought to the royal park of Falkland, as something that was curious and useful. The ancient kings of Scotland, it 
is to be observed, were farmers and breeders of the useful animals on the great scale, nearly all their household revenue being 
derived from the produce of their own domains. Of this innumerable evidences are derived from the charters and other documents 
of our early history; and it is reasonable to believe, that, during the frequent residence of the royal household at the rural retreat 
of Falkland, cows, and the produce of the dairy, were not neglected. 
But however the dairy breed of Falkland found its way thither, whether from England or from the marshes of the Scheldt 
and Rhine, it is manifest that it had been naturalized at some early period in the place where its remains are yet found. Unfor¬ 
tunately it has been so merged in the common races of the country, that individuals can now with difficulty be obtained pure. It 
was of a black colour, marked often with white, and having the skin of an orange-yellow tinge. It had short and very white 
horns, turned up in a manner sufficient to distinguish it. Although now difficult to be obtained free from mixture, its traces are 
everywhere to be found in all the home-breds of the eastern parts of Fife ; and it is probably to this intermixture that the modern 
Fifeshire cattle owe the most useful qualities which are supposed to distinguish them. The Cow shown in the figure is a fine 
specimen of the breed, but a Bull could not be procured in the whole district exhibiting the same evidence of purity; and the 
owner of this beautiful Cow was afraid that she was the last of the pure Falklands which he should possess. It is much to be 
regretted that the former breeders of Fifeshire should have been too careless of the preservation of a breed so much superior to 
the mixed varieties that have succeeded to it. Had the Falkland Breed been cultivated with care during a period when artificial 
food could have been supplied in the requisite quantity, it is probable that Fifeshire would now have been possessed of a breed 
combining, in a degree not surpassed by any other in the kingdom, the properties of grazing and yielding milk. 
But the breed of Fifeshire being now, from whatever causes, mixed, and the Falkland Breed existing in too small a number 
to allow of any reasonable hope of restoring it, the economical question which arises, is, in what manner the existing varieties may 
be best improved ? This certainly may be effected in the case of the Fifeshire, as of any other cattle, by a careful selection of the 
parents, and by a continued system of breeding amongst the individuals of the improved progeny; but the end could not be accom¬ 
plished without the long labour which such improvements demand, and hardly without a more general accordance in the opinion 
of breeders than now exists with respect to what the Fifeshire breed really is, or what it should be. While one class of agricul¬ 
turists shall cultivate a race on the model of the Polled Angus or Galloway, and another one on the type of the horned Falkland, 
particular herds and stocks may be improved, but no uniform breed can be established. It would seem better, then, to recur at 
once to a breed already formed and of recognised goodness. The improved Short-horns, or Durhams, have already supplanted 
the coarser home-breds over a great part of the British Islands. They have taken root far beyond the Forth even in the most 
northern counties ; and in the high range of the Lammermuir, to the south of the same river, the breed is now reared in its purity 
by every farmer : and it would be absurd to contend, that a low country like Fife, abounding in fertile soil, capable of produc¬ 
ing turnips and the cultivated grasses, and continually advancing in its agriculture, should not be able to support any of the 
finest and largest breeds which the Island can produce. Intelligent individuals have already introduced stocks of pure Short-horns, 
but even the merely crossing with superior Bulls of the breed would at once remove all the harsher characters of the Fifeshire 
varieties; and although crossing, in the case of certain breeds which have acquired a fixed class of characters suited to the condi¬ 
tion of a particular country, as the Ayrshire and the Galloway, might be injudicious, it would never be found to be so with a class 
of cattle so mixed and various as that of Fifeshire. Doubtless the Durham Breed is not so well fitted for the ordinary purposes 
of the dairy as the home-breds of Fifeshire ; but then in that locality the dairy, though extensively pursued, is little more than an 
affair of the household. The main purposes of the grazier are grazing and fattening, and it seems proper that a breed of the first 
class should be established in a district so well fitted to pursue this branch of husbandry. 
