REPORT OF THE AGRICULTURE OF AYRSHIRE. 89 



acres ; in Cunningham and Kyle at least, but in Carrick the 

 same will be 50 acres or more larger. Such a sized farm usually 

 keeps a milking stock of from 18 to 22 cows, turning out one 

 cheese daily of more or less weight during the season. A large 

 number of the stocks run between 20 and 30 cows ; some few 

 comprise from 30 to 40 or even more, but by much the greater 

 proportion range with*n 14 to 20. Too many cows on a farm is 

 no profit. A less number, and the more abundant pasturage 

 consequent, always pays better in the long run ; besides, the 

 money shut up in overplus stock may be put to other (and pay- 

 ing) uses. Somewhere about five o'clock a.m. the morning 

 milking of the cows takes place. The milk is carried direct in 

 the " luggies" as drawn from the cows, and emptied through a 

 very fine wire-cloth sieve (the " milsey"), or else through a thin 

 canvass cloth, into a large " milk-boyen" or tub standing in the 

 contiguous dairy-room. The cows being milked, are guided by 

 the byre boy to the field or fields on which they may be for the 

 time grazing. The fields generally are not more than about 6, 

 8 ; or 10 acres, in extent each — few exceeding 10 or 12 acres: 

 although they are much larger on the green-cropping farms 

 along the coast, and commonly in Carrick. Leaving the cows 

 to refill their udders at their leisure as best they may, return we 

 to the dairy-room. 



The cream of the previous evening's milk is skimmed off, 

 and the remainder being warmed in a vessel in the boiler to about 

 or fully 100 c , is then added through the sieve, along with the 

 cold cream, to the morning's meal already in the tub, and raising 

 the whole when added to an uniform temperature of from 86° to 

 88°. Milk as it comes from the cow is about 96°. After stirring 

 in the " rennet," the milk takes about 30 minutes — seldom less, 

 sometimes more — to properly " thicken" or coagulate. The milk 

 of cows feeding on upland clayish pastures must be thickened at 

 a higher heat than that from cows grazing on more fertile low- 

 lying farms ; and during very cold weather, or towards the end 

 of the season, the temperature is always slightly increased. 

 Thermometers are hardly ever used by any of the " Dunlop- 

 makers." The proper warmth is determined by the feel of the 

 fingers or hand, and it is wonderful how near they hit upon, and 

 s regularly keep to, that precise degree of heat at which they are 

 accustomed to thicken. Most of the cheesemakers are the wives 

 and daughters of the farmers, only a few of the larger farms, or 

 gentlemen — or bachelor-farmers, engaging bred dairy-women : for 

 in Ayrshire, unlike England, every process connected with the 

 milk, the butter, or the cheese, is conducted by women, and 

 rightly, too ; and although most of the " gudewives" and their 

 " dochters" may be much more at home in fingering a cow's paps 

 than the keyboard of a piano, they are not on that account any 



