(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 £12 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 £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 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 £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 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 £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 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 £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 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.
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.