Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

62 CATTLE.
sleet. They are rarely more than four feet high at the withers, and
sometimes scarcely more than thirty-five or forty pounds a quarter.
The Shetland cattle contrive to live on their native moors and
wastes, and some of them fatten there ; for a considerable and increasing
quantity of beef is salted in Shetland and. sent to the mainland,
the quality of which is exceedingly good. When, however, the
Shetlanders are transported to the comparatively richer pastures of
the north of Scotland, they thrive with almost incredible rapidity,
and their flesh and fat, being so newly and quickly laid on, is said to
be peculiarly delicious and tender. They run to fifteen or sixteen,
or even twenty stones in weight. If they are carried still farther
south they rarely thrive ; they become sickly, and' even poor, in the
midst of abundance : the change is too great, .and the constitution
cannot become habituated to it.
ABERDEENSHIRE.
This extensive county breeds or grazes more cattle than any other
of Scotland. The cattle in Aberdeenshire have been calculated at
110,000. More than 20,000 are slaughtered, or sold to the graziers,
every year.
iTinjTiVTKQnTBR OT.