FAKMERS' INSTITUTES. 381 



Ayrshire. 



"The Ayrshire,"' says Warrmg (and by the way, Warriug is a Jersey man 

 all over), "is par excelleuce the milkman's cow. She is rather small, per- 

 fectly formed, well developed in every point that tends to the production of 

 large quantities of milk, and of that deUcacy of organization which invariably 

 accompanies the production of rich milk, and whether the business be the sale 

 of milk or the manufacture of cheese, she leads the list of the jiure breeds, 

 while for butter she is hardly, if at all, inferior to any other in the quantity 

 produced. Were it required that we should lose from our dairy farms all but 

 one breed of cattle, tlie Ayrshire should by all means be the one retained, for 

 although a large eater, she converts her feed into milk more completely than 

 does any other animal." An average herd of Ayrshires fairly fed and cared for 

 may be expected to give six times their weight of milk in a year. No other 

 breed will make so good a return. They were developed on the poor soil of Ayre, 

 in Scotland, yielding a scanty pasturage, which makes them all the more valua- 

 ble for us as easy keepers. The Ayrshire is well adapted to cheese making. 

 The butter globules are abundant, but unequal in size, varying from 1-1500 to 

 1-4000 of an inch in diameter, requiring a long time for all the cream to rise, 

 and calling for skill in churning to get all the butter. It takes from twenty 

 to twenty-five quarts of milk to make a pound of butter. 



The Ayrshire "Georgia," owned by Sturtevant Bros., Massachusetts, weight 

 1,080, gave, in the year 1874, 8,271 pounds of milk, or nearly eight times her 

 weight. 



The average weight of the Ayrshire cow is from 950 to 1,050 pounds. 



"The Ayrshire cow," says Sturtevant, "is an expression of the will of the 

 Scotch people, and her peculiar adaptation to the wants of that people, shows 

 the intensity of the purpose which impelled them in her production. She is 

 admirably adapted to a country of uneven surface, and scant, uncertain pasturage. 

 She is a good feeder, eats much, but of what she eats she requires but a small 

 part for her own support, and secretes the greater part in milk." 



The objections iirged by some against this breed are the moderate size, 

 small, short teats, a great tendency to nervousness, and a suspected weakness 

 of constitution. They are not esteemed as beef makers, but they fatten readily 

 when dry, but their beef is inferior to the short-horns or Devons. 



The best cow for the farmer who has plenty of good, rich food, and the 

 object is to milk awhile and then convert into beef, is the 



Short-Horn. 



The short-horns, while they are the largest of all the bovine races, are some- 

 times the greatest milkers. It is doubtful if there has ever been any better 

 milking stock than the original short-horns, and they still hive a persistent ten- 

 dency to transmit that quality to their descendants. Mr. Allen says the original 

 were the greatest milkers in quantity of any breed except the Dutch. He says 

 there are numerous well authenticated instances of their giving eight or nine 

 gallons of milk per day on grass alone. 



Hon. Harris Lewis, of Herkimer county, New York, has a herd of twenty 

 short-horns, mostly of the Princess family, and eight or ten selected native cows. 

 He finds that his short-horn cows yield more and richer milk than the best 

 native cows he could select. His dairy averaged 251 pounds of butter to the 

 cow in 1875, besides selling $50 worth of milk at the farm. Again, some cows 

 in certain families that have long been bred for beef and beauty, fail to give 



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