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The West Highland and Galloway cattle may be said tooccupy nearly all the north-west and south-west of Scotland;the only other Variety found in any considerable number inthose parts being the dairy breed of the counties of Ayr,Lanark, and Renfrew.
3. The Breeds of the North-eastern District.
The Lowlands lying along the eastern coast are much bet-ter adapted to tillage than the districts in which the High-land and Galloway cattle are reared. A better supply ofwinter food not only raises cattle to a larger size, but per-mits the farmer to choose his stock from different breeds, orto form a new variety by crossing. The cattle of the arablepart ot Scotland are accordingly much diversified in theirsize, colour, and general appearance, and cannot be alwaysso well distinguished from'one another as the two breeds al-ready mentioned. The best stocks ^of the North-easterncounties approach to the form of the West Highlanders, butare much heavier, and may be fed at the age of eight years,to which they are sometimes kept for the draught, to almostas great a weight as any cattle in the island. The cattlebred in the south-eastern counties, whatever might have beenthe native races, are now fast approaching to the short-liorn-cd breed of the north of England. All the cattle from theMurray Frith to the Frith of Forth have a general resem-blance ; but it may be necessary to class them under two va-rieties, 1. That of the north-eastern counties of Nairn, Mo-ray, Banff , Aberdeen, and Kincardine; and 2. That of thecounties of Angus and Fife.
The basis of the former variety is the native breed whichis still to be found, without any intermixture, in the highergrounds, that connect all of these counties, except Kincardine,with the Highlands of Scotland ; and their greater size, ands ome slight difference in form, colour, and horns, lias beenproduced by crosses with cattle from Fife and other districts,these crosses, taken at a time when cattle were chiefly va-