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CATTLE AND CATTLE-BREEDERS
BY
WILLIAM M'COMBIE, M.P.
TILLYFOUR
SECOND EDITION, REVISED
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXIX
Transcriber's Note: The advertisements and reviews that preceded the
title page have been moved to the end of this text.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE FEEDING OF CATTLE, ETC. 1
II. REMINISCENCES, 34
III. THE CATTLE TRADE, THEN AND NOW, 67
IV. BLACK POLLED ABERDEEN AND ANGUS CATTLE AND SHORTHORNS, 86
V. HINTS ON THE BREEDING AND CARE OF CATTLE, 99
CATTLE AND CATTLE-BREEDERS.
I. THE FEEDING OF CATTLE, ETC.
(_Read before the Chamber of Agriculture._)
As my friend Mr Stevenson and some other members of the Chamber of
Agriculture have expressed a desire that I should read a paper on my
experience as a feeder of cattle, I have, with some hesitation, put
together a few notes of my experience. I trust the Chamber will
overlook the somewhat egotistical form into which I have been led in
referring to the subject of dealing in cattle.
My father and my grandfather were dealers in cattle. The former carried
on a very extensive business: he had dealings with several of the most
eminent feeders in East Lothian; among others, with the late Adam
Bogue, Linplum, John Rennie of Phantassie, Mr Walker, Ferrygate, &c. I
cannot express how much I reverence the memory of the late Adam Bogue,
as one of the finest specimens of a kind-hearted gentleman I have ever
met. Other friends of my father and of myself in East Lothian I also
recall with the greatest respect; among these let me mention William
Brodie, John Brodie, William Kerr, John Slate, Archibald Skirving, and
Mr Broadwood, farmers, all eminent as feeders of stock. My father's
chief business-connection was with East Lothian; but he had also a
connection with Mid-Lothian and the county of Fife, and a large trade
with England. At one of the Michaelmas Trysts of Falkirk he sold 1500
cattle. He wished to give all the members of his family a good
education. I was kept at school, and was afterwards two years at
college; but to this day I regret my inattention when at school.
My father was very unwilling that I should follow his business, knowing
that it was a very precarious one; but what could he do with me? I
would do nothing else, and he was obliged to yield. I worked on the
farm for years, when not away at the fairs, with the servants, and
shared their diet. I cut two harvests, and during the season took
charge of the cattle. My first speculation was a L12 grass-field. In
this I had a partner, an excellent man, who had been a servant to my
father for twenty years. It was a good year, and we divided L15 of
profit. This gave me encouragement. I yearly increased my speculations,
and gradually got into my father's business at the Falkirk markets and
Hallow Fair. My father was very indulgent, and sent me away to a fair
when a very young man, giving me authority to buy, and money to pay
for, half-a-dozen beasts. I exceeded my commission and bought three
little lots--about fifteen in all. The owners trusted me the money I
was short. I drove them home myself--about sixteen miles--feeling very
proud of my drove. My father examined them next morning, and remarked,
"They have not the countenance of beasts." Of course, this chagrined me
very much. This was about my first appearance as a buyer of cattle, and
some of the beasts I remember to this day. I believe there is no better
way to train a young man than to put him to market without assistance.
If a man cannot back himself, he is unfit for the trade of a butcher, a
jobber, or grazier.
My father retired with a good name, and I retained his old customers.
On one occasion only did Adam Bogue buy a beast from any dealer except
from my father or myself, and he declared he was no gainer by the
transaction. He purchased 120 cattle yearly. The late Mr Broadwood
always bought about eighty beasts at the Michaelmas Fair. I put up the
number and the size he wanted, and he bought them from me and my father
for many years, always choosing middle-sized three and four year olds,
and never going beyond L11 per head. The highest figure at that time
for feeding-cattle at Falkirk Tryst was about L13. On Tuesday morning
he came to my cattle, and inspected them first of any he looked at, and
asked their price. With such a customer as Mr Broadwood I asked close.
To some parties it is necessary to give halter. He then went away and
examined the cattle of other dealers, but always came back in about an
hour; and I think he never once failed to deal with me. He was a good
judge, and did not require any assistance in selecting his stock; he
came alone.
I had also several dealings with Mr Broadwood's son, but only
occasionally, and he did not hold so close to me as his father had
done. I also retained the friendship of Robert Walker, the Messrs
Brodie, and Archibald Skirving, and secured for myself that of Mr
Buist, the late William Kerr, the late John Slate, and John Dudgeon,
Almondhill. My father and I always had about the best cattle at Falkirk
Tryst.
There was then a great trade with Cumberland at the Michaelmas Tryst
for horned Aberdeen cattle. The animals were sent from Cumberland to
Barnet in spring, and sold off the marshes fat in July and August. My
best sixty generally commanded the highest price.
The late Mr William Thom was my great opponent in the horned-cattle
trade, and sometimes beat me despite all my efforts. When we saw it for
our interest we went in company, and attended all the great fairs in
the north; and in conjunction with each other we secured a good
proportion of the best cattle. Our grazing cattle were always sold
separately. Mr Thom must still be remembered by many. He was a giant in
strength: an honester man never lived; perhaps a little decided in his
manner, but of great ability and perseverance. As copartners we were
not very regular book-keepers, and our accounts got confused. At the
wind-up at Hallow Fair, as we had the accounts of the Falkirk Trysts
likewise to settle, we worked at them for days, and the longer we
worked the more confused they became. To this day I do not know in
whose favour the balance was. For the future we resolved to act
separately. It was a bad Hallow Fair for large cattle. I have doubled
stirks at Hallow Fair, buying them at from L2 to L4, and, to use an
Aberdeen expression, turning them heels over heads. But I never could
make a shilling of profit out of large cattle. At Hallow Fair Mr Thom
and I had unfortunately sixty very large cattle left over unsold from
the Michaelmas, many of which had cost L13 and L14 in Aberdeenshire. Mr
Thom had the selling of them. He had just one offer in the shape of
three gentlemen--one from East Lothian, one from Fife, and one from
Perth, who likewise joined. They were sold the next day at L12, 5s.
a-head. After the bargain was struck, the gentlemen requested Mr Thom
to divide them. His answer was, with a sarcastic look to his customers,
"Well, gentlemen, you have been good and great friends for two days, it
would be a great pity for me to make you quarrel now." Mr Thom, who was
thoroughly "awake," turned upon his heel and went away. I divided the
beasts for the gentlemen; and to divide a lot of beasts equally is not
such an easy matter as some might suppose.
I have often been puzzled in dividing, say, forty beasts into four tens
(I had often to divide lots of cattle for my customers when I was in
the lean-cattle trade). The cattle are first cut through as equally as
possible; the two divisions are then cut through again, and you have
thus four tens. They are then examined, and a good beast is exchanged
for a bad from the best to the worst side, and so on alternately until
you bring them as equal as it is possible to make them. But with all my
experience, I have often been unable to satisfy myself of the equality
of the four tens; and when this was the case, I had to decide what was
the difference and tell the buyers. If you draw, say, No. 1, being the
most valuable lot, you must pay to the gentleman drawing No. 2, an
inferior lot, the sum of L2, L3, or L5, as the case may be, &c. This
may seem strange to a good judge of cattle, but let him be called on
himself to decide in such a case. He may naturally think a change of a
beast will make all right, but he will find that in some cases no
exchange will rectify the matter to his satisfaction. In connection
with this let me offer my friends a piece of advice:--if they buy a cut
of cattle from a dealer, say twenty out of sixty, a neutral party and a
good judge ought to divide the cattle: it should not be the buyer, and
much less ought it to be the dealer, because the seller knows the
beasts individually; and however well you drive sixty cattle round the
circle, there will always be a better and a worse side. The dealer sees
this at a glance, and, if so inclined, can make the cut much as he
likes. The buyer, again, if he is as good a judge as the jobber (which
is seldom the case), if allowed to cut them, would be likely to make a
good cut for himself, and not a fair one for the seller; but the
difference will not be so glaring, as he cannot know the beasts as the
dealer does. I am speaking always of a fair cut as sold from the sixty.
It is not easy to explain in writing how this division is made; but as
there is no doubt many a one has been bitten, I shall do my best to
describe the process. Suppose the sixty beasts are well driven through
one another, which is always done before a cut is attempted, and
suppose the dealer is to cut the cattle, he merely gives the lot a
glance; he can see in a moment the strong and the weak side, for there
will be a difference. He will run off the twenty from the worst side of
the sixty, and he will run the number off to a beast or two. It is very
quickly done; the stick is used sharply, and in running off the twenty
he can easily put six or eight of the best in the line to any side he
may think fit. I do not mean to say this is often done, but I wish to
show that it can be managed.
In selling lean cattle there is a great deal to be gained by choosing a
favourable stance and showing them off properly to the buyers. Cattle
look best on the face of a moderate sloping bank, and worst of all at a
dead wall. The larger the number shown in a lot, especially of polled
cattle, as they stand close together, they look the better. I never
liked to show less than forty in a lot, but sixty will look better than
forty, and eighty better still. I never would break a lot of beasts
except for a consideration in price, as the cattle left behind never
have the same appearance. The dealer likewise knows that cattle look
largest on the off-side. Many buyers like to see every beast in a lot
go past them; and if the dealer can get the buyer to inspect them on
the off-side, it is to his own advantage. Cattle and sheep are the
better of a good rouse-up when the buyer is inspecting them. I have
often seen quarrelling between the buyers and the drovers, the buyers
insisting on the drovers letting them alone, while the drovers will not
let them stand. I have seen a clever man keep some of the best beasts
always in view of the buyers, a stick with a whipcord being used for
the purpose.
Many were the long rides, the late nights, and early mornings that Thom
and I had together in the North buying drove cattle. In the end of
October and beginning of November the nights get very dark. At Skippy
Fair of New Deer we nearly came to grief two or three years in
succession; it is held in the end of October. There was a decent man,
Abel, and his wife, who lived in Inverurie, and attended all the fairs.
Their conveyance was a cart. They were honest hard-working people, and
good judges of cows. They knew very well what they were about; and they
required to do so, for Mrs Abel brought up, I believe, nineteen of a
family: she was a very stout, "motherly" woman. They drove home
likewise in the cart, always buying two cows, which they led with ropes
behind the cart. A cart with a cow attached by a rope at each side will
take up the greater part of a narrow road. It was very dark, and near
the old Castle of Barra. Thom rode a very fast horse he had hired from
Richard Cruickshank, a celebrated judge of horses, who was at that time
a horse-hirer in Aberdeen. I rode an old steady pony of my own which
had been sixteen years in our family. Thom was going before at a
dashing pace, I considerably in the rear, when bang he came against the
ropes attaching the cows to the cart. His horse was thrown into the
ditch; he recovered himself, but fell again, coming down heavily upon
Thom, who was very much hurt, and had to go home instead of going to
Potarch Market next day. I escaped, Thom's mishap warning me of the
danger. At the same fair next year we had bought, as we found on
comparing our books, ninety-nine cattle, mostly stirks. It was dark
before we got the animals settled for, and we had to watch them on the
market-stance. While crossing the lonely moor between New Deer and
Methlick, Thom was as usual a little in advance, I following on the
same old pony the best way I could close at his heels, when all at once
a man took hold of his horse by the reins and asked him the road to New
Deer. I observed another man and a box or two lying on the road, such
as are used by travelling hawkers. Thom struck at the man's head with
his stick with all his might, saying at the same time, "_Cattle of
your description cannot be far out of your road anywhere_." The man
let go his hold, and Thom galloped off, calling to me to follow, which
I was nothing loath to do. Thom's horse was white, and mine was a bay.
The vagabonds might have seen a white horse coming on in the dark,
while they did not observe the bay, and may thus have been led to
suppose there was only one man. As the boxes were laid aside, I have no
doubt they intended a robbery, though this did not strike me at the
time. But our troubles were not yet at an end; at the same old Castle
of Barra, Thom, still in advance, called out, "_The wife, the cows,
and the ropes again!_" He had just time to save his distance, and
save me too.
The ninety-nine beasts turned out to be only ninety-five (they were no
great spec after all, leaving only L45 of profit). Thom had booked four
he had never bought; and when the lot was counted to be joined to the
drove, they would not number more than ninety-five. I advertised for
them, and had a man in Buchan a week searching for them; and when I
told Thom in Edinburgh that they could not be found, he confessed he
had never bought them.
I am not sure if it was the same year we had come up to Edinburgh the
Saturday night before Hallow Fair. We were rather late in getting ready
to go to church. I had heard a great deal about Dr Muir as a preacher,
and we went to hear him; but not being very certain of the church, we
inquired at a gentleman's servant, dressed in splendid livery, very
civilly, the way to Dr Muir's church. Instead of giving a civil reply,
"Oh," he said, "Aberdeen awa'!" Thom, who was very impulsive, came
across the side of the fellow's head with his umbrella, and laid him
flat on his back in the middle of the street, with his heels in the
air. I made no remark, Thom said as little, but walked on as if nothing
had happened. We heard our friend calling after us he would have his
revenge; I hope it was a lesson to him to be civil in future.
I sent for many years sixty horned cattle in spring to Mr Buist,
Tynninghame. They were grazed in Tynninghame Park, and he also required
other forty or sixty during the season for house-feeding. I only gave
up the commission business when I could carry it out no longer to my
satisfaction and to the advantage of my employers. For years after I
went to the Falkirk markets there was not a white beast to be seen; but
by-and-by Irish-bred cattle appeared, and then the Shorthorns. The
business of dealing in north-country cattle came to be worthless. I
bade Falkirk adieu, and turned my attention entirely to the rearing and
fattening of cattle at home. I gave up the fascinating business of a
lean-cattle jobber, seeing it was done for, and I have never regretted
my resolution. The lean-cattle trade was difficult to manage, and in
fact was most dangerous. Many a day, when attending Hallow Fair, I have
got up by four or five o'clock in the morning, breakfasted, and not
tasted food till six o'clock at night. The weather was so bad on one
occasion that man and beast were up to the knees in mud. I had my
beasts standing near one of the gates. Mr Archibald Skirving never got
further than them; he bought forty, sent them away, and returned home.
As he bade me good morning, he remarked, "I would not like to be in
your place to-day."
I have stood many a bad Hallow Fair, but the worst was about twenty
years ago. I never was so much in want of assistance from my friends.
The price of cattle had fallen very much after the Michaelmas Tryst.
Turnips were bad in East Lothian. I had been on a visit to Mr Buist,
and met Mr Kerr, Mr Slate, Mr Walker, &c. Both buyers and sellers
anticipated a bad fair, and it turned out the worst I ever saw; it is
generally either a very good or very bad market. Tuesday came, and with
it a perfect storm of wind and rain--the worst market-day I ever
encountered. You could hardly know the colour of the cattle, which were
standing up to their bellies in a stubble-field. My friends got to the
market; there were Mr Buist, Mr Walker, Ferrygate, Mr Kerr, Mr Slate,
and one or two more. They gave my cattle what examination it was
possible to give animals in such a stormy day. Out of about two hundred
which I had, they wanted about one hundred and seventy. Mr Walker said
to me, "I think you might give us a glass of brandy;" and accordingly
we retired to a tent, from which we did not move for an hour, as one
wanted forty, another thirty, another twenty, &c.; and of course it
took a good deal of time to talk over the different lots. At last we
rose. I had, while seated, drawn them as to the price as far as they
would come. The weather was dreadful. I was very unwilling, and they
were not very anxious, to face the storm. I was in the middle of my
customers. I did what I could to get an advance on their offers, but I
could not extract another farthing; and when all was settled, I gave
the accustomed clap of the dealer on the hand all round, and I did not
see them again till night, except Mr William Kerr, who, with a
struggle, got the length of my remaining thirty beasts, and bought ten.
I think I hear the triumphant howls of the men to this day, as they
started the nine score of cattle for their destinations, one lot after
another, through the astonished dealers, whose cattle at that hour, I
believe, were never priced. There were few sold on the first day. I
could not sell my twenty remaining cattle, and could not even get a bid
for them. Of all the good turns my friends did for me, this was the
best. I came out with a small profit, while the losses sustained by
other parties at the market were heavy. A great many cattle were sent
farther south, and returned back to the north. One respectable dealer
told me that no one had ever asked the price of his cattle, and coolly
added, "I have taken turnips from ----, and sent the cattle home." I
never lost a shilling in East Lothian, or by a bad debt, as a
lean-cattle dealer.
To be a good judge of store cattle is exceedingly difficult. We have
many judges of fat cattle among our farmers and butchers, and a few
good judges of breeding stock; but our really good judges of store
cattle are exceedingly few. A judge of store cattle ought to be able to
say at a glance how much the animal will improve, how much additional
value you can put upon him on good, bad, or indifferent land, and on
turnips, in three, six, or twelve months. Unless a grazier is able to
do this, he is working in the dark, and can never obtain eminence in
his profession. Since my first speculation, already referred to--the
half of the L12 field--I have bought and grazed store cattle for nearly
fifty years. No one has been able to put upon paper a clear definition,
such as can be understood by the reader, of the characteristics of a
good store beast. It is only practice and a natural gift that can
enable any one to master the subject. There are a few rules, however,
that the buyer of store cattle should be acquainted with. He ought to
know how they have been kept for the previous six months, otherwise
their keep may be entirely thrown away. I make it an almost universal
rule (and I have never departed from the rule except with a loss), that
I will graze no cattle except those that have been kept in the open
strawyard, and have been fed exclusively on turnips and straw. If you
can get them off yellow turnips it will be decidedly to your advantage.
I have seen this proved by dividing twenty beasts, and keeping one half
on yellow turnips, and one half on swedes, both lots getting full
turnips. Those on the swedes shot far ahead in the strawyard of those
upon the yellows. When taken up from grass, however, the cattle fed
upon the yellows were equal to those fed on the swedes. They were
grazed together. The difference of improvement in different lots of
cattle must have often struck every observer.
I am well acquainted with the different strawyards in Morayshire, and
know how the cattle are kept, and how they thrive. There are some farms
on which they thrive better than others, even when their keep is in
other respects the same. There are farms in Morayshire which are not
breeding farms, and where the young stock does not thrive, and the
calves have to be sold, and even old cattle only thrive for a certain
length of time. Some farms are apt to produce cancer on the throat and
side of the head. I pay little attention to this, as change of air
cures the complaint. For the first two or three weeks after a beast is
attacked with this disease, it will go back in condition; but I have
seldom seen much loss by it. If in warm weather, the beast may have to
be taken up to avoid the flies; if the disease is inside the throat, it
may interfere with the breathing, and the animal may have to be killed.
I bought from the late Mr David Sheriffs, Barnyards of Beauly, in
spring, ten Highlanders, every one of which had cancer in different
stages. I grazed them until October, when the cancers had all
disappeared, and the beasts did well (for Highlanders) at grass.
If you put upon grass cattle which have been fed through the winter
upon cake, corn, brewers' wash, grains, or potatoes, and kept in hot
byres or close strawyards, and look to them to pay a rent, you will
find that they will soon make a poor man of you. This mode of feeding
is unnatural. Before the animals begin to improve, three months will
have passed. If half-fat cattle are bought, which have been kept close
in byres or strawyards, and put to grass in April or the first two
weeks of May, and cold stormy weather sets in, with no covering to
defend them, they will fall off so much that the purchaser will
scarcely believe they are the beasts he bought. Thus he not only loses
all his grass, but the beasts will be lighter at the end of three
months than when they were put into the field. Let me not, however, be
misunderstood. I do not mean to say that a few weeks of a little cake
or corn will ruin a beast for grazing; but you may depend upon it, that
the less artificial food given during winter the better. When kept upon
the food I have specified for months and months, they are perfectly
unfit for grazing. I regard cake as the safest substitute for turnips;
and corn, potatoes, brewers' wash, and grain, as the worst. But my
ambition is to graze a bullock that has never been forced, and has
never tasted cake, corn, or potatoes. The store cattle I winter for
grazing are all kept in open strawyards, with a sufficient covering for
bad weather, and as dry a bed as the quantity of straw will permit.
This is indispensable for the thriving of the cattle. They receive as
many turnips as they can eat. Beasts must always be kept progressing;
if they are not, they will never pay. My store cattle never see cake,
corn, or potatoes. I would rather throw potatoes to the dunghill than
give them to a store bullock, though I would give them to my fatting
bullocks.[1] If I can get the bullocks for grazing that I want, I will
not lose one mouthful of grass upon them. They will not go on, however,
without proper care and superintendence. It requires a practised eye.
If a grazier has a number of fields and many cattle, to carry out the
treatment of his cattle properly, shifting and fresh grass once in ten
or fourteen days should, if possible, be adopted. This has always been
my practice. In one day I have observed a marked difference in the
improvement of animals after the shift.
[1] As to giving potatoes to store cattle, since writing the
above, I wish to modify the opinion I have expressed to a certain
extent. I had a conversation with Mr Hope on the subject, and he
states that his belief is, that potatoes are not prejudicial to
the growth of store cattle when put to grass, and that his
practice is to give them potatoes. I will admit that a few
potatoes may not do a store beast much harm; but in my experience
in Aberdeenshire I have found that in cattle which have been fed
with potatoes the black colour changes to a dusty brown; they are
also bad thrivers. A beast that sports that colour is never doing
well. I shall, however, prosecute the inquiry.
The grazier must always consider the quality of his grass-land, and buy
cattle adapted for it. It would be very bad policy to buy fine cattle
for poor or middling lands. You must always keep in view how the cattle
have been kept. If they have been kept improperly for your purpose,
their size, whether large or small, will not save you from loss. If the
cattle are kept on cake, corn, potatoes, or brewers' wash or grain,
during the previous winter, it will be ruin to the grazier. Let it not
be supposed, however, that I recommend buying lean, half-starved
beasts. What I wish to impress on you is, that you must keep the cattle
always full of flesh; and, as a breeder, you must be careful not to
lose the calf flesh. If you do so by starving the animal at any time of
his growth, you lose the cream--the covering of flesh so much prized by
all our best retail butchers. Where do all the scraggy, bad-fleshed
beasts come from that we see daily in our fat markets, and what is the
cause of their scragginess? It is because they have been stinted and
starved at some period of their growth. If the calf flesh is once lost,
it can never be regained. A great deal of tallow may be got internally
by high feeding, but the animal can never again be made one that will
be prized by the great retail butcher. Our Aberdeen working bullocks
carry little good meat. Draught as well as starvation takes off the
flesh. They are generally only fit for ship beef.
Let me now offer a few observations as to the breeds of cattle best
adapted for paying a rent--the great object of our cattle rearing and
feeding. I have grazed the pure Aberdeen and Angus, the Aberdeen and
North-country crosses, the Highland, the Galloways, and what is termed
in Angus the South-country cattle, the Dutch, and the Jutland. Except
the two latter, all the others have got a fair trial. I am aware that
the merits of the pure Aberdeen and Angus form a difficult and delicate
subject to deal with. I know that the breeders of Shorthorns will
scrutinise my statements carefully. But my only object is to lay down
my own experience, and I trust that I have divested myself of prejudice
as much as possible. If store cattle of the Aberdeen and Angus breed
out of our best herds can be secured, I believe _no other_ breed
of cattle will pay the grazier more money in the north for the same
value of keep. But there is a race of starved vermin which is known by
some in the north by the name of "Highland hummlies," which I consider
the worst of all breeds. No keep will move them much. At the top of
these I must place those with the brown ridge along the back. They can
be made older, but it takes more ability than I ever had to make them
much bigger. Keep is entirely thrown away upon such animals. As regards
good Aberdeen or North-country crosses, they are rent-payers. He would
be very prejudiced indeed who would not acknowledge their merits. I
graze more cross-bred cattle than pure-bred polled. The Highlanders on
our land are not profitable; they are of such a restless disposition
that they are unsuitable for stall-feeding, however well they are
adapted for grazing purposes in certain localities and under certain
conditions. But, I repeat, for stall-feeding they are unsuitable;
confinement is unnatural to their disposition. The last Highlanders I
attempted to feed were bought at a cheap time. In the month of June
they were most beautiful animals, and they grazed fairly. I tied them
up; but they broke loose again and again, and ran three miles off to
the glen where they had been grazed. There was one of them that his
keeper never dared to approach, and the stall had to be cleaned out
with a long crook. They consumed few turnips, and did not pay sixpence
for what turnips they did consume. No other description of cattle,
however, is so beautiful for noblemen's and gentlemen's parks.
As to the Galloway cattle, they also have had a fair trial with me. I
was in the habit of buying for years from one of the most eminent
judges of store Galloways in Britain--Captain Kennedy of Bennane--a lot
of that breed. He selected them generally when stirks from all the
eminent breeders of Galloway cattle, and bought nearly all the prize
stirks at the different shows. In fact, he would not see a bad Galloway
on his manors. The Galloway has undoubtedly many and great
qualifications. On poor land they are unrivalled, except perhaps by the
small Highlanders. Captain Kennedy's cattle always paid me; they were
grazed on a 100-acre park of poor land--so poor, indeed, that our
Aberdeens could not subsist upon it. I had ultimately to break it up
for cropping. If I had not been obliged to do this, I should not have
liked to have missed Captain Kennedy's Galloways. Although the
Galloways are such good cattle to graze--and this goes to prove the
truth of my remarks as to the forcing system, the Galloways at Glenapp
being wintered out--they are not so easily finished as our Aberdeen and
Angus or cross-bred cattle. They have too much thickness of skin and
hair, too much timber in their legs; they are too thick in their tails,
too deep in their necks, too sunken in the eye, for being very fast
feeders. It is difficult to make them ripe. You can bring them to be
three-quarters fat, and there they stick; it is difficult to give them
the last dip. If, however, you succeed in doing so, there is no other
breed worth more by the pound weight than a first-class Galloway.
As to what we term the South-country cattle, I have also given them a
trial. My experience is that they are great beasts to grow; that they
consume an immense deal of food, but that they are difficult to finish;
and when finished they are very indifferent sellers in the London
market. They generally carry a deal of offal along with them; but those
who have patience, and keep them for many months, they may pay for
keep. I have had a few German and Jutland cattle through my hands, but
not in sufficient numbers to enable me to say anything about them
worthy of your notice. After trying all the breeds of cattle I have
specified, I have come to the conclusion that the Aberdeen and Angus
polled, and the Aberdeen and North-country crosses, are the cattle best
adapted, under ordinary circumstances, in the north of Scotland, for
paying the feeder. Our cross-bred cattle, and especially the
South-country cattle, are greater consumers of food than the pure
Aberdeens. This is a part of the subject which has never got the
consideration it deserves. When the cross and South-country cattle are
two or three years old, and when the day lengthens out, they consume a
fearful quantity of food. The age of cattle ought also to be taken into
consideration. No doubt a young two-year-old will grow more than a
three-year-old, and for a long keep may pay as well. But I have been
always partial to aged cattle; and if you want a quick clearance, age
is of great consequence. The great retail London butchers are not
partial to "the two teeths," as they call them; and I have seen them on
the great Christmas-day examining the mouths of cattle before they
would buy them. They die badly as to internal fat, and are generally
light on the fore-rib. I have always given a preference to aged cattle,
as they get sooner fat, are deep on the fore-rib, and require less cake
to finish them. Aged cattle, however, are now difficult to be had, and
every year they will be scarcer with the present demand for beef. A
perfect breeding or feeding animal should have a fine expression of
countenance--I could point it out, but it is difficult to describe upon
paper. It should be mild, serene, and expressive. The animal should be
fine in the bone, with clean muzzle, a tail like a rat's, and not
ewe-necked; short on the legs. He should have a small well-put-on head,
prominent eye, a skin not too thick nor too thin; should be covered
with fine silky hair--to the touch like a lady's glove; should have a
good belly to hold his meat; should be straight-backed, well ribbed up,
and well ribbed home; his hook-bones should not be too wide apart. A
wide-hooked animal, especially a cow after calving, always has a
vacancy between the hook-bone and the tail, and a want of the most
valuable part of the carcass. I detest to see hooks too wide apart;
they should correspond with the other proportions of the body. A level
line should run from the hook to the tail. He should be well set in at
the tail, free of patchiness there and all over, with deep thighs, that
the butcher may get his second round and prominent brisket deep in the
fore-rib, with a good purse below him, which is always worth L1 to him
in the London market; well fleshed in the fore-breast, with equal
covering of fine flesh all over his carcass, so valuable to the
butcher. His outline ought to be such that if a tape is stretched from
the fore-shoulder to the thigh, and from the shoulder along the back to
the extremity there, the line should lie close, with no vacancies; and
without a void, the line should fill from the hook to the tail. From
the shoulder-blade to the head should be well filled up--as we say,
good in the neck vein. I am aware that the preceding remarks as to the
quality and proportions a beast should possess must be very
unsatisfactory to you, as they are to myself; scarcely any one animal
has possessed them all, and to look for the half of them in a good
commercial beast would be vain. I have consulted no writer upon the
subject; they are set down, and not in good order, just as they struck
me at the time. Thick legs, thick tails, sunken eyes, and deep necks,
with thick skin and bristly hair, always point to sluggish feeders.
In cold weather in the month of May, the old silky coat of the
strawyard bullock is of great advantage. If we could get the qualities
and proportions I have specified in animals, it would not be difficult
to make them fat. It would be difficult only to make them lean, when
once in condition. A high standing, want of ribbing-up and ribbing
home, with the tucked-up flank, always denote a worthless feeder. You
must all have observed how difficult it is to bring such cattle into a
state for killing. It will take a deal of cake and corn to make them
ripe. A great many can never be made more than fresh; it is only a
waste of time and money to keep them on.
I have adverted to the way cattle should be treated in winter as
stores. The earlier you can put cattle upon grass so much the better.
Cattle never forget an early bite of new grass. A week's new grass in
Aberdeenshire at the first of the season is worth at least two and a
half upon old grass; and it is wonderful what improvement a good
strawyard bullock will make in four or five weeks at the first of the
season. If kept on straw and turnips alone in winter, he may add a
third or at least a fourth to his live weight. But much depends on the
weather. I have never known cattle make much improvement in April, or
even up to the 12th of May, because the weather is so unsteady, and the
cold nights when they are exposed in the fields take off the condition
the grass puts on. The grazier will find it of great advantage to house
his cattle at night during this season. In Aberdeenshire the 10th of
May is about the earliest period cattle should be put to grass. Where
there is new grass, first year, it is a most difficult matter to get
the full advantage of it. There is no other grass to be compared with
it for putting on beef in Aberdeenshire. You must be careful at the
first of the season, if much rain falls, not to allow the cattle to
remain on the young grass. They must be shifted immediately; and no one
can get the proper advantage of such grass who is deprived of the power
of shifting the cattle into a park of older grass till the land again
becomes firm for the cattle. I have seen a small field of new grass in
the month of May or the beginning of June utterly ruined in one night,
when heavily stocked with cattle. When wet and cold the cattle wander
about the whole night, and in the morning the fields are little better
than ploughed land. In fact, the field so injured will never recover
until broken up again.
In regard to my own farms, I cut scarcely any hay. I pasture almost all
my new grass, and the moment the cattle's feet begin to injure the
grass, they are removed. If cattle are changed to an old grass field,
so much the better; but they will be safe on second or third year's
grass, provided the land is naturally dry. By the 1st July, the new
grass land gets consolidated, and you are safe. New grass fields are
bad to manage in another respect. The grass comes very rapidly about
the 10th June, and if you are not a very good judge of what you are
about, it will get away in a few days, become too rank, and will lose
its feeding qualities during the remainder of the season. By the middle
of July it will be nothing but withered herbage. Young grass ought to
be well eaten down, and then relieved for two or three weeks; then
return the cattle, and the grass will be as sweet as before. It
requires practice to know the number of cattle, and the proper time to
put on these cattle, to secure the full benefits of new grass. Three
days' miscalculation may cause a heavy loss. I have been bit so often,
and found the difficulty so great, that I fear to extend my
observations on this part of the subject, when I am addressing
gentlemen many of whom make their young grass into hay, or sell the
grass to the cowfeeders. The pasturing of new grass, in which the
farmers of Aberdeenshire and the north of Scotland have a deep
interest, may not apply to many other parts of Scotland.
I come now to the way cattle should be treated after being taken from
their pastures and put on turnips. The earlier you put them up, the
sooner they will be ready for the butcher. The practice of tying the
cattle early up in Aberdeenshire is now almost universal; the success
of the feeder depends upon it, for a few weeks may make a difference of
several pounds. I recollect tying up a lot of cattle at Ardmundo,
thirty in number--a fair cut of ten being left in the field at home on
fine land and beautiful grass. The thirty were tied up by the 1st of
September, the ten on the 1st of October. The weather was cold, wet,
and stormy; and between the improvement the thirty had made and the
deterioration upon the ten, there was by my computation, however
incredible it may appear, L5 a-head of difference. Mr Knowles of
Aberdeen happened to see the cattle, and when he came upon the ten he
asked what was the matter with them. He could scarcely credit the
facts; their hair was so bad that they actually looked like diseased
animals, and it was long before they took a start. I shall state the
method I adopt. I sow annually from twelve to sixteen acres of tares,
and about the middle of June save a portion of the new grass full of
red clover, and from the 1st to the 20th of August both tares and
clover are fit for the cattle. I have for many years fed from three
hundred to four hundred cattle; and if I was not to take them up in
time, I could pay no rent at all. A week's house-feeding in August,
September, and October, is as good as three weeks' in the dead of
winter. I begin to put the cattle into the yards from the 1st to the
middle of August, drafting first the largest cattle intended for the
great Christmas market. This drafting gives a great relief to the grass
parks, and leaves abundance to the cattle in the fields. During the
months of August, September, and October, cattle do best in the yards,
the byres being too hot; but when the cold weather sets in there is no
way, where many cattle are kept, in which they will do so well as at
the stall. You cannot get loose-boxes for eighty or a hundred cattle on
one farm. I generally buy my store cattle in Morayshire. They have all
been kept in the strawyard, never being tied. When the cattle are tied
up on my farms, a rope is thrown over the neck of the bullock; the
other end of the rope is taken round the stake; two men are put upon
it, and overhaul the bullock to his place. When tightened up to the
stall the chain is attached to the neck, and the beast is fast. We can
tie up fifty beasts in five hours in this way. When tied, you must keep
a man with a switch to keep up the bullocks. If you did not do this you
would soon have every one of them loose again. They require to be
carefully watched the first night, and in three days they get quite
accustomed to their confinement, except in the case of some very wild
beast. I never lost a bullock by this method of tying up. This system
is like other systems--it requires trained hands to practise it.
I never give feeding cattle unripe tares; they must be three parts ripe
before being cut. I mix the tares when they are sown with a third of
white pease and a third of oats. When three parts ripe, especially the
white pease, they are very good feeding. Fresh clover, given along with
tares, pease, &c., forms a capital mixture. I sow a proportion of
yellow Aberdeen turnips early to succeed the tares and clover. I find
the soft varieties are more apt to run to seed when sown early than
yellow turnips.
It is indispensable for the improvement of the cattle that they receive
their turnips clean, dry, and fresh. When obliged to be taken off the
land in wet weather, the hand should be used to fill the turnips from
the land to the carts. The turnips should be pulled and laid in rows of
four or six drills together on the top of one drill, with the tops all
one way and the roots another; but it is better that parties should
follow the carts and pull the turnips from the drills, and throw them
into the carts at once. It is an invariable rule with me that the
turnips are filled by hand in wet weather. Advantage should be taken of
fine weather to secure a good stock of turnips, and a good manager will
always provide for a rainy day. A very considerable proportion of
turnips should be stored, to wait the severe winters very often
experienced on the north-east coast. If I had sufficient command of
labour, I would store the greater part of my Swedish turnips (if ripe).
I would, however, store only a proportion of the Aberdeen yellow, as
they lose the relish, and cattle prefer them from the field; but I
require a proportion of them for calving cows in frost. Frosted turnips
make cows with calf abort, and rather than give calving cows such
turnips I would order them straw and water. Fresh Swedish turnips are
indispensable to feeding cattle during the winter. It is a sorrowful
sight to see a gang of men with picks taking up turnips in a frosty
day, leaving a third of the produce on the land, and the turnips going
before your bullocks as hard as iron. We have almost every year a week
or ten days' fine weather about Christmas, and this should be taken
advantage of to store turnips, if not stored previously. I have tried
all the different modes of storing recommended. I shall not enter on
the minutiae of the subject, as it is now generally so well understood;
and I need only urge here that the roots should not be bled in any way,
that the tops should not be taken off too near to the bulbs, that the
tails be only switched, and that they be pitted and secured
_every_ night to keep them free from frost and rain. I have
adopted my friend Mr Porter of Monymusk's plan (in a late climate and
where Swedish turnips in some years never come to full maturity) of
pitting them upon the land where they grow, from one to two loads
together; and, although not quite ripe, I have never seen a turnip go
wrong when stored in this manner. The land also escapes being poached,
as the turnips are carted in frost, and at a time when the other
operations of the farm are not pressing. A foot of earth will keep them
safe, and they are easily covered by taking a couple of furrows with a
pair of horses on each side of the line of pits.
In a week or ten days after the first lot of cattle is taken up from
grass, a second lot is taken up. This is a further relief to the
pastures, and the cattle left in the fields thrive better. This taking
up continues every week or ten days to the end of September. At this
period all feeding cattle ought to be under cover that are intended to
be fattened during the succeeding winter. The stronger cattle are
drafted first, and the lesser ones left until the last _cull_ is
put under cover.
It would be of no use to attempt to feed cattle, unless you can command
a staff of experienced men to take charge of them. However faithful in
other respects, these men must have a taste and a strong liking to
cattle--they must be their hobby. Even with men of the greatest
experience, the difference in the thriving of the different lots upon
the same keep is great. They must not be oppressed with having too many
in charge, or the owner will suffer by his ill-judged parsimony. From
August till November a man may take care of, and pull turnips for,
thirty cattle very well, or a few more, if the cattle are loose; but
when the day gets short, twenty to twenty-five is as many as one man
can feed, to do them justice, if tied up. Good cattlemen are
invaluable. They must not only know what to give the cattle; but the
great secret, especially when cattle are forced up for show purposes,
is to know _what not to give them_. An inexperienced man amongst a
lot of feeding cattle must be a great loss to his employer. Like
everything else, the proper management of the animals cannot be learned
in a day--the cattleman must be always learning. For myself, I can only
say that, long as I have traded in cattle, have studied their
treatment, have considered their symmetry, I am learning something new
every other day. As regards the treatment of cattle when put upon tares
or cut clover, there is no danger; but with turnips an ignorant man may
injure the cattle in one week so much that they may not recover it
during the season. The cattle must be gradually brought on, giving them
a few turnips at first, and increasing the quantity daily, till in from
ten to fourteen days they may get a full supply. When improperly
treated the cattle scour and hove, the stomach getting deranged. It is
a long time before they recover, and some never do well. We generally
cure hove by repeated doses of salts, sulphur, and ginger. Occasionally
a beast will hove under the best treatment; but if you find a lot of
them blown up every day, it is time to change their keeper. In cattle
which are being forced for exhibition, hove is generally the first
warning that the constitution can do no more. I have seen cases so
obstinate that they would swell upon hay or straw without turnips.
Putting the animal out to grass for a couple of months will generally
renovate the constitution and remove the tendency to hove; and after
being taken up from grass, with a man in charge who knows what to give
and _what not to give_, the animal may go on for a few months
longer, and with great attention may at last prove a winner.
Occasionally an animal may be found whose digestion no amount of
forcing will derange, but such cases are very rare. Cattle feeding in
the stall should be kept as clean as the hunter or valuable race-horse,
and their beds should be carefully shaken up.