CROSSING. 
cross breed must be better fed than the native 
parent.” 
The hilly pastures, in general, lie on rocks of 
the transition or secondary formations; they 
abound in natural grasses, and have a prevailing 
greenness of colour, and produce a sufficiency of 
herbage for the food of stock during the greater 
part of the year; yet, though much warmer and 
less bleak than the mountainous pastures, they 
suffer very considerable exposure to keen and 
sweeping blasts, and are, in many instances, often 
shrouded in fogs or drenched with rains. These 
pastures are well able to maintain animals of a 
larger size and less hardy habit than such as 
live upon the mountains; yet they are too chilly, 
too moist, and not by any means dainty enough 
for any of the tender and fastidious feeders of the 
best districts of the plains. By far the greater 
portion of the cattle at present found on the hilly 
pastures of Scotland have shaggy coats, hardy 
constitutions, and an unfastidious taste; and their 
aggregate character sufficiently hints how foolish 
it would be to attempt to supplant them by any 
very fine breed. 
The champaign pastures, for the most part lie 
on the alluvial or tertiary formations; they en- 
joy the best of our country’s luxuriance, shelter, 
and warmth; they are the scene of the cultiva- 
tion of the artificial grasses, and of all the best 
achievements and the highest refinements of 
modern agriculture; and, with their rich com- 
bination of natural advantages and artificial ap- 
pliances, they can almost everywhere adapt them- 
selves to the habits and the maintenance of the 
largest and most tender varieties of cattle which 
have ever existed in our country. All the plains 
and valleys of the north of Scotland—of the coun- 
ties of Forfar, Perth, Kincardine, Aberdeen, El- 
gin, Cromarty, and Caithness—as well as those 
of the south-east of Scotland, or of the centre 
and south of England, could readily support the 
pure short-horned breed of cattle,—if not upon 
their mere meadows, at least with their ample 
aids of green crops, lea-ground, and winter-soil- 
ing. 
These three classes of pastures, the mountain- 
ous, the hilly, and the champaign, might be ar- 
ranged into six, or twelve, or twenty subdivisions, 
each with its specific range of adaptation, and 
might, in consequence, be distributed into dis- 
tricts or sections for the maintenance of so many 
different groups of improved or cross-bred cattle. 
Yet, with probably as high advantages to agri- 
culture as if any degree of subdivision should be 
practised, each might be kept entire and appro- 
priated wholly to one race of cattle,—the moun- 
tainous pastures, to a cross between the West 
Highland bull and the Shetland cow,—the hilly 
pastures, to the offspring of the West Highland 
cow, slightly but not in every instance altered 
by crossing with the short-horn bull,—and the 
| champaign pastures, to the offspring of the most 
select native cows with the best attainable short- 
horn bulls. Mr. Dickson made this suggestion in 
1837, and remarked, “Like the multiplicity in 
the varieties of the potato, there are too many 
varieties of breeds of cattle in this country. 
Were those only which are proved to be most 
profitable cultivated and encouraged, the agri- 
cultural interest would never feel so severely the 
depression in the prices of corn; nor in that case 
need breeders be under any apprehension of a 
foreign competition, even were the importation 
of foreign meat permitted duty free. Could I 
have my desire fulfilled, I should have only the 
three breeds which I have recommended for their 
respective situations throughout the whole coun- 
try, namely, the cross between the West High- 
land and Shetland for the upper pastures, the 
West Highlanders or Kyloes for the middle pas- 
tures, and the short-horn for the plains for pur- 
poses of feeding; and the Ayrshire might con- 
tinue as they are, or rather as they might be 
improved by judicious cultivation, for the pur- 
poses of the dairy, although I am not of the 
opinion that the Ayrshire make the best dairy 
cows. Could such a desideratum be consum- 
mated, breeders would then derive the greatest 
profit from their pastures with the least exertion, 
and they could always depend on their cattle ac- 
quiring the greatest weight in a given time on a 
given quantity of food; and this invariable result 
would stimulate their exertions to raise a greater 
quantity of food.” 
Crossing native cows with short-horn bulls has, | 
for some time past, been regarded by almost all 
ordinary improvers as a panacea for all defects | 
in existing breeds of cattle; and though this has 
often been absurdly practised without due refer- 
ence, or even without any reference whatever, to 
adaptations of soil and climate, yet in nearly all 
instances upon champaign pastures, and in sev- 
eral instances in seemingly ungenial situations, 
it has more or less answered expectation, and | 
A rapid no- | 
tice, therefore, of crossings of the short-horn bull | 
with cows of some of the principal Scottish breeds, | 
effected very visible improvement. 
and of one or two other breeds in situations not 
the most favourable for the short-horns, can | 
scarcely fail to be interesting and instructive. 
The cross of a short-horn bull with a Shetland 
cow has, with common feeding, attained the 
weight of 45 stones, and possesses such remark- 
ably fine quality of beef as to command the high- | 
est price in the market. The substance, symme- 
try, and weight of the native ox are greatly 
improved, and the proverbially fine quality of the 
beef is not deteriorated.—A cross with a North 
Highland cow, though much inferior to that with 
a Shetland cow, is a decided improvement.—A 
cross with a Galloway cow, a Buchan doddie, or 
a large-horned Aberdeenshire cow, is improved 
in at once weight of substance, quality of beef, 
and fineness of appearance. An ox, from a short- 
horn bull and a large-horned Aberdeenshire cow, 
obtained the first prize for fat, symmetry, and 
