130 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



get, so that they can bring great weight in a limited space, and 

 put that weight right on to a rock and go along; that is what 

 they use them for. They do not want Devons there. Their cattle 

 are all of this heaviest class. But for our country farm work in 

 Connecticut, we want the Devons. They will travel further, they 

 will plow more, the} 7 will draw a cart anywhere with a load as big 

 as ought to be put on a cart, they will climb our hills, and they 

 will do any amount of farm work. A pair of Devons will do more 

 than a pair of Shorthorns that will weigh a thousand pounds more, 

 and we think it does not cost so much to keep them. Certainly 

 they will go round and gather up their living and be fat upon 

 rocky fields, where the Shorthorns will not. But when they want 

 cattle to put into these quarries, and give them all the grain they 

 can eat every day for a year, so that when they stop working them 

 they go at once to the shambles, they want a different class of 

 stock. High grade Shorthorns are bred expressly, in the valley 

 of the Connecticut, to supply those quarries. 



1 have been repeatedly called upon by friends in cities to furnish 

 them with a cow that would give good milk for family use. They 

 were not particular about the quantity, but they wanted good 

 milk. 1 have met that demand satisfactorily by going to a neigh- 

 bor and getting a high grade Devon. The problem has been satis- 

 factorily solved ; they have always been satisfied with the milk 

 produced by such an animal. 



We next come to the Ayrshires. These have been bred for a 

 long period in Scotland upon hard hill pastures, for the express 

 purpose of producing milk for the making of cheese. They are 

 not a large breed ; they are hardy, but the quality of their milk, 

 when tested for butter making, does not compare favorably with 

 that of the Jerseys. The cream does not so readily separate from 

 the milk as in the Jersey, but the richness exists in the milk. It 

 is rich in all the constituents of milk, and they seem particularly 

 adapted to the production of milk for cheese and for market. Few 

 owners of Ayrshires claim excellence for them as butter makers, 

 though there are some cases on record which show a good yield in 

 that direction ; but their record as milk producers is perfectly 

 astonishing. 1 have in memory one cow which appears in the last 

 Ayrshire herd-book — "lied Rose" — I forget her owner and her 

 number, — she was a small cow, (the Ayrshires are all small,) that 

 gave 84 pounds of milk in a single day, and her average for some 

 two months was 67 pounds a day. Eighty-four pounds is as near 



