Cattle and Cattle-breeders Part 1

Cattle and Cattle-breeders.

by William M'Combie.

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 Phanta.s.sie, 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 12 gra.s.s-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 15 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 a.s.sistance.

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 11 per head. The highest figure at that time for feeding-cattle at Falkirk Tryst was about 13. 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 a.s.sistance 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 c.u.mberland at the Michaelmas Tryst for horned Aberdeen cattle. The animals were sent from c.u.mberland 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 2 to 4, 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 13 and 14 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 12, 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 2, 3, or 5, 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 45 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 a.s.sistance 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 gla.s.s 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 12 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 gra.s.s, 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 gra.s.s.

If you put upon gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed. If half-fat cattle are bought, which have been kept close in byres or strawyards, and put to gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s, 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 subst.i.tute 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 quant.i.ty 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s, 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 gra.s.s-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 n.o.blemen'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-cla.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 quant.i.ty 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 carca.s.s. 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 1 to him in the London market; well fleshed in the fore-breast, with equal covering of fine flesh all over his carca.s.s, 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 gra.s.s so much the better.

Cattle never forget an early bite of new gra.s.s. A week's new gra.s.s in Aberdeenshire at the first of the season is worth at least two and a half upon old gra.s.s; 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s. Where there is new gra.s.s, first year, it is a most difficult matter to get the full advantage of it. There is no other gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s. They must be shifted immediately; and no one can get the proper advantage of such gra.s.s who is deprived of the power of shifting the cattle into a park of older gra.s.s till the land again becomes firm for the cattle. I have seen a small field of new gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s, and the moment the cattle's feet begin to injure the gra.s.s, they are removed. If cattle are changed to an old gra.s.s field, so much the better; but they will be safe on second or third year's gra.s.s, provided the land is naturally dry. By the 1st July, the new gra.s.s land gets consolidated, and you are safe. New gra.s.s fields are bad to manage in another respect. The gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s ought to be well eaten down, and then relieved for two or three weeks; then return the cattle, and the gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s. 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 gra.s.s into hay, or sell the gra.s.s to the cowfeeders. The pasturing of new gra.s.s, 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 gra.s.s. 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, 5 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s, 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 quant.i.ty 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 const.i.tution 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 gra.s.s for a couple of months will generally renovate the const.i.tution and remove the tendency to hove; and after being taken up from gra.s.s, 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.

I change the feeding cattle from tares and clover on to Aberdeen yellow turnips, and afterwards to swedes, if possible by the middle of October. I do not like soft turnips for feeding cattle. The cattle that I intend for the great Christmas market have at first from 2 lb. to 4 lb. of cake a-day by the 1st of November. In a week or two I increase the cake to at least 4 lb. a-day, and give a feed of bruised oats or barley, which I continue up to the 12th or 14th of December, when they leave for the Christmas market. The cake is apportioned to the condition of the different animals, and some of the leanest cattle get the double of others which are riper. The cattle being tied to the stall places this quite in your power, while in the strawyard it could not be done. When ten or twenty beasts in the strawyard stand together, the strongest take the greatest share, and these are very often the animals that least require it. I consider the stall a great advantage over the strawyard in this respect, as you can give each beast what you wish him to have. My men are told the quant.i.ty of cake and corn which I wish every beast to receive. You must all have observed the inequality in the improvement of cattle in the strawyard when ten, fifteen, or twenty beasts are fed together. I have seen the best beast in a lot when put up, the worst when taken out. The first three weeks after the cattle are put upon cake along with their turnips, they will put on as much meat as they will do with an equal quant.i.ty of cake for the next five. It is absolutely necessary to increase the quant.i.ty of cake and corn weekly to insure a steady improvement; and if cattle are forced upon cake and corn over two or three months, it will, in my opinion, pay no one. To give unlimited quant.i.ties for years, and to say it will pay, is preposterous. To give fat cattle the finishing dip, cake and corn, given in moderation and with skill for six weeks before the cattle are sent to the fat market, will pay the feeder; but to continue this for more than two months will never pay in Aberdeenshire. This is no doubt a bold a.s.sertion, but I believe it to be correct. The cake and corn given to cattle day by day loses its effect, till at last you bring the beast almost to a standstill, and week after week you can perceive little improvement. Cake, and still more corn, appear to injure their const.i.tution; gra.s.s, turnips, and straw or hay are their only healthy food. For commercial cattle, and for commercial purposes, two months is the utmost limit that cake and corn will pay the Aberdeenshire feeder. There can be no subst.i.tute for gra.s.s, straw, and turnips, except for a very limited period; though in times of scarcity, and to give the last dip to fat cattle, the other feeding materials are valuable auxiliaries.

I have kept on a favourite show bullock for a year, thinking I would improve him, and given him everything he would take; and when that day twelvemonth came round, he was worse than a twelvemonth before. You can only torture nature so far; and if you force a yearling bullock, he will never come to the size that he will attain if kept on common fare.

If you wish to bring a bullock to size for exhibition, give him as much gra.s.s and turnips as he can eat. Begin to force only when he is two and a half to three years old, and by the time he is four years he will not only be a neater but a larger animal than if he had been forced earlier: forcing in youth deteriorates the symmetry of the animal as well as diminishes his size. I am speaking only of Aberdeen and Angus cattle, but I believe the breeders of Highlanders are also well aware of this fact. I am not speaking of pounds, shillings, and pence, or of the profit to the farmer; for who would think of keeping beasts bred to himself older than rising three years old? Calves dropped early should go to the fat market at the age of two years.

A word as to show bullocks. I believe they are the most unprofitable speculation an agriculturist can interfere with. To keep a show bullock as he ought to be kept will cost from 12s. to 15s. a-week, which amounts to about 40 a-year.

The method I adopt as to using cake and corn is the following:--On the different farms where I feed the cattle, I put a fourth part of their number only upon cake and corn at one time, and six weeks (which is about my limit of time for cake and corn, &c., paying the feeder) before they are to be sent to the fat market. When the six weeks are expired they are sent away; another fourth part of the original number take their place, and get their six weeks' cake. When they leave, the other cattle in succession get the same treatment. When turnips are plentiful the system works very well. The cattle draw beautifully, week by week, from the different farms, and come out very ripe. I may mention that almost all the cattle I graze are generally kept during the previous winter upon as many turnips as they can eat, and are in high condition when put to gra.s.s. I believe, however, that in the south of Scotland, where there is more corn and less gra.s.s land, this method would not be suitable. Large bills for cake are not easily paid, and when paid swallow up our profits. When cattle are fed almost exclusively upon the produce of the farm, the feeders know what they are about; but this method of feeding requires time and patience, and there is a long outlay of capital. Still, if the system is adopted and judiciously managed, upon medium or high-lying and low-rented land, the cattle treated as above ought to pay the rent and leave a fair profit to the feeder. There is no doubt that in the north, and especially in Aberdeenshire, there is a rage for fine cattle; and on my part it has almost amounted to a "craze." I would have been a richer man to-day if I had not been so fastidious in my selections; but I cannot endure to look at, and never will tolerate, a bad beast on my land. The gentlemen I buy from know my weakness, and they say, if they are anxious to sell, We must let M'Combie have a "pull." Many are the lots of beasts I have bought and culled, and I had to pay for it. Sellers have served me right. Still there is a fatality follows me that I fear it is hopeless now to endeavour to get over. A good bullock will always be a good one, and will easily be made ripe--requiring little cake or corn--and come right out at last.

The following is the system I have adopted in the selection of the cattle I have wintered. I buy the best lots I can find during the summer, fit for wintering and keeping on to the following Christmas. I then cull the worst of the different lots, feeding the culls and wintering the tops. By this method I secure a lot of wintering cattle for the great Christmas market of the ensuing year, without one bad or indifferent beast among them. The price I have obtained for several years, with the exception of the culls of my winterers, has been 35 a-head.