78 REPORT OF THE AGRICULTURE OF AYRSHIRE. 



proximity to towns, where a ready sale of milk or butter can be 

 depended on, early calving is the reverse of profitable. Generally 

 over the county the time of calving is most convenient and re- 

 munerating, tor the earliest to begin from a month to 6 weeks 

 before the grass is ready ; and what number of calves may be 

 reared are thus most of them about off the milk when cheese- 

 making commences. But such farmers, for instance, as Mr. 

 Thomas Speirs, iSkerrington Mains, Hurlford, and Mr. Hugh 

 Woodburn, Annandale, who dispose of the whole produce nearly 

 in the form of milk or butter, time their cows to begin to calve 

 so early as before the new year, and thus have a continual 

 supply all year round for their customers. 



The quantities of milk drawn daily from the cows varies 

 considerably in different animals, and also at different times of 

 the year in the same animal, according to the state of the pasture 

 or the measure of other food she may be receiving. The reporter 

 cannot set down the average daily yield of milk from each cow, 

 all over Ayrshire, and for six months of the year, at more than 

 five Scots pints, equal to 15 imperial pints. He is perfectly 

 aware that is below the amount given by most writers on the 

 subject, yet is confident that 5 Scots pints is if anything above 

 the average, even for the period stated. Various writers speak 

 of 8, 10, and 12 Scots pints, daily, or even more, and all that is 

 very true in some individual cases of extra-good milchers, for a 

 short time in the height of their milk and the grass at the best. 

 Professor Lowe estimated the total yearly yield of a cow, in good 

 dairies and on good farms, at 6000 imperial pints, which amount, 

 allowing 210 milking days, gives ns 0^ Scots pints per day for 

 7 months ! There is not a kind of cow on the best grass farm 

 in the kingdom which will yield such a quantity regularly for 

 that length of time. It just amounts to about twenty pound's 

 worth of full-milk cheese from each cow ! A writer in the 

 Mark Lane Express (May 1 863) stated the average annual pro- 

 duce of cows at 4400 imperial pints each, fehould his average 

 be anything near the truth in respect to Britain at large, then 

 all the reporter can say is, that the Ayrshire pastures, generally 

 and proportionally, must be more defective than even he sup- 

 posed them, and that is poor enough in all conscience. Our 

 estimate for Ayrshire, over all, would be about 3400 imperial 

 pints from each cow per annum* The fault of the small average 

 produce over the county, — if it is small compared with other 



* In Morton's " Farmers' Almanack" for 1866, the average annual yield per 

 cow in five known dairies is given as 4992 pints, but which is stated as being 

 above the average of ordinary grass-fed cows. A Gloucestershire dairy is said 

 to yield about 4320 pints per cow, although we find that the average yearly yield 

 of milk per cow at Frocester Court farm near Stonehouse, in a dairy of 8o cows, 

 was 3862 pints for year 1S63, and only 3360 pints for 1864, owing to the drought 

 in the latter year. 



