terogeneous multitude: from the man who can pay thousands, through
all the intermediate stages, down to the man that buys a beast and
cannot lift it unless he can sell it there and then for a profit. We
have a large class of the first, who can not only pay their hundreds
but their thousands. We have an intermediate class that job, generally
occupiers of two and four horse farms. There is no end to their
peregrinations, toil, and industry; in summer, in winter, in fair and
foul, by night and by day, by moonlight and by starlight, they scour
the country, and collect cattle from all points of the compass, and
sell them at the fairs to farmers, butchers, and dealers. We have also
the dealer of smaller pretensions, who can only afford to buy a beast
or two, which he drives to market himself; such a beginning, however, I
have known end in becoming the proprietor of L25,000 worth of landed
property. We have the cow-jobber, and it is sometimes a very lucrative
business; many have been very successful in the trade. Mr Forrest was a
cow-jobber: he rented all the grass land round Hamilton Palace for many
years from the Duke of Hamilton. He bought nothing but cows, and it was
said he would ride 100 miles to buy a farrow cow. He died worth a
fortune, and proprietor of a good estate. We have the jobber who buys
only lean store cattle, and the jobber of fat cattle alone. Banffshire
can claim a Stoddart, and Morayshire the two M'Kessocks, the Laird of
Ardgay, and the tenant of Balnaferry; and I do not know which to admire
most, the daring and skill of the laird, or the caution and skill of
the tenant, Macdonald of Blervie, through whose hands three-fourths of
the store cattle in Morayshire pass. We have in Aberdeenshire Mr Reid,
Greystone, in the Vale of Alford; Mr Stoddart, Cultercullen; the Messrs
Bruce in Alford, Clova, and Strathbogie; and Mr Mennie of Huntly. Mr
Reid, Greystone, has attained the highest position as a feeder and
grazier amongst British agriculturists. His stock have for many years
taken a most prominent place at our national shows at London,
Birmingham, Liverpool, York, Newcastle, Leeds, Edinburgh, &c. &c.

IV. BLACK POLLED ABERDEEN AND ANGUS CATTLE & SHORTHORNS.

It is not my purpose to treat of shorthorns: I may, however, glance at
some of the principal breeders of that kind of stock in the north. Mr
Alexander Hay, Shethin, was the first who introduced shorthorns into
Aberdeenshire. He bought the celebrat