Longhorns, and on the north by the backward state of the country, the east country Dutch cattle—the Shorthorns—were prevented for a time from extending their territory. The state of the north in the beginning of the eighteenth century may be imagined from the fact that while there were many considerable provincial towns in the south, and two of them, Norwich and Bristol, had about 30,000 inhabitants, there were really only four important towns in the north, viz. York with 10,000 inhabitants, Edinburgh with 30,000, Glasgow with 12,000, and Aberdeen with about 10,000. In those days a traveller might have travelled from London to York by coach, but beyond that he must have used pack-horses. The means of communication may have been good enough even for cattle of an improved breed, but the deplorable lack of winter food, especially in Scotland, was sufficient to prevent the Shorthorns spreading northwards quickly. Brigadier Mackintosh, a partaker in several rebellions and in many continental fights, while lying prisoner in Edinburgh Castle somewhere between 17 19 and 1729, thus describes how cattle were treated in Scotland:[1] "Nor can it be otherwise in the supine ignorance our Farmers are in, in the Method of choosing the right ages of putting up to fatten their Beasts and the want
- ↑ "An Essay on Ways and Means for Inclosing, Fallowing, Planting, etc., Scotland," 1729, p. 131.
