306 REPORT ON THE AGRICULTURE OF DUMFRIESSHIRE. 



remarks that it was general for breeders to keep two young 

 beasts for every milch cow. Presuming this proportion to be 

 general, the total number would be 36,000 ; but allowing for 

 deficiencies in that proportion, he states them at 30,000. It is 

 somewhat inteiesting to find that the same mode of calcula- 

 tion would give results almost exactly correct now. It appears 

 from the Inland Revenue Keturns, there were 15,861 cows in 

 1866. Supposing two young beasts for every cow, the number 

 of young cattle would be 31,722, whereas there were in reality 

 28,503, the proportion of these two years of age and above being 

 11,230, and the number under two years of age 17,273. Thus 

 the total, according to Dr Singer's method of computation, would 

 be 47,583, whereas the real number was 44,364. If a similar 

 allowance be made for deficiencies in the proportion to what he 

 made, the result would be almost identical with what we know 

 from statistics to be perfectly correct, thus showing how careful 

 and accurate he must have been in his calculations. 



The 44,364 cattle which were in the county in 1866 were 

 mainly composed of animals belonging to the three following 

 breeds, namely, Galloways, Ayrshires, and Shorthorns. There 

 would be a few West Highlanders and some young Irish cattle, 

 but these are comparatively few. 



1. Galloways. — The " Galloways " were for a long series of years 

 the almost universal breed of the county. Latterly, however, 

 Ayrshires, as we shall see, have supplanted them to a consider- 

 able extent, until now there are not above one-half of the farms 

 in the county on which Galloways exclusively are kept. A 

 large number of the breeders keep their young cattle until they 

 are two years old, when they are sold to the graziers and larger 

 farmers. These are again sold in autumn, and the greater 

 proportion of them which were not fattened in the county used 

 to be sent to Norfolk. Of late years, however, this trade has 

 been gradually diminishing, and at the present time many of 

 them are sent to the Lothians and Fifeshire. We have adverted 

 in a previous section to the stimulus which the growth of 

 turnips, and the opening up of the county by steam communica- 

 tion, gave to the preparing of cattle for the fat market. The 

 introduction of the dairy system to such a large extent also 

 lessened the number of store Galloway cattle sent to the south. 

 Before the practice of feeding cattle and keeping Ayrshire cows 

 became so common, almost all the store cattle of the county 

 were Galloways, and were driven by the road to Norfolk and 

 adjacent districts. About thirty or forty years ago as many as 

 20,000 good cattle of this class were sent annually from the 

 district of which the town of Dumfries is the centre. The most 

 of the Galloways which are fattened in the county are de- 

 spatched to the fat markets when from two years and nine months 



