202 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



we shall, in most cases, resort there for whatever new blood 

 it may be thought proper to introduce into this country. 

 The British breeds which are included in the milk-producing 

 class, are the Ayrshire, the Alderney or Jersey, the Yorkshire, 

 the Leicestershire, or Longhorn, the Suffolk and the Kerry. 



The Ayrshire breed may be said to be of artificial origin. It 

 appears to have been first known as the Dunlop breed, from 

 the superior stock in the possession of General Dunlop, near 

 Ayr, seventy-five or eighty years ago. It is said that this 

 gentleman imported cattle from Holland, the blood of which 

 was infused with other breeds, (one of which was probably the 

 Alderney,) tints forming the foundation of the modern Ayr- 

 shire. There is evidence that the Dunlop family were in 

 'possession of valuable dairy stock as early as the period above 

 alluded to. The poet Burns, when he was farming at Ellis- 

 land, near Dumfries, in a letter written in 1788, speaks of a 

 heifer which had been presented to him by the proprietor 

 of Dunlop House, as " the finest quey in Ayrshire." But 

 there is little doubt that the present leading type of the Ayr- 

 shire was derived in part from a cross with the'Kyloe or 

 West Highland breed. This appeared, in the first instance, 

 probably, in what was called the Swinley variety. The facts 

 which I have obtained in Scotland in regard to it, are substan- 

 tially as follows : Theophilus Parton, of Swinley farm, near 

 Dairy, Ayrshire, about forty years ago, took great pains to 

 select a herd of what were deemed to be the best Ayrshire 

 cattle, into which he infused a strain of the West Highland 

 blood, the particular degree of which is not generally known.* 

 The Swinley stock differs from the ordinary Ayrshire in having 

 a shorter head, with more breadth across the eyes, more upright 

 and spreading horns, more hair, and generally better con- 

 stitutions. They are also somewhat smaller boned than the 

 old stock, though from their superior symmetry they are equal 

 to them in weight of carcass. 



The following points given by the Ayrshire Agricultural 

 Association, 1853, "as indicating superior quality," will give 



* In my late visits to Scotland, I learned that Mr. Parton was still living, 

 though from the infirmities of age, upwards of eighty years, he does not attend 

 to business matters. 



