228 Account of the Meeting 



old. This hardens them very much. I have fomid no breed that gives 

 so much milk upon moderate food as these Ayrshires. 



" Count of Holstein. — Mr. Pogge has mentioned that we have formed 

 a society in Holstein for the purchase of Ayrshire cows. That is true ; 

 l)ut we have no experience of them at present. We mean to buy them, 

 because we read in so many books that the Ayrshires with moderate food 

 give more butter than other breeds. We do not expect more milk from 

 them than from our own marsh cattle ; on the contrary, I think they 

 will give less milk. I have had marsh cattle, of which I got the an- 

 cestors out of the marsh, for the last ten or twelve years on my own 

 pastures, and I find them answer. On good feed they do well. It is 

 true, the marsh cattle are too heavy : my own are too heavy for many 

 districts. As for the Ayrshires, I wish that in Mecklenburg you would 

 make some experiments on their produce and on the cost of keeping 

 them, and I will particularly ask Mr. Pogge to do so. 



" Mr. Pogge consented, and stated further that he had found the 

 Ayrshire bulls make a most excellent cross with the Mecklenburg breed, 

 and that his neighbours brought their cows to his bulls from a great 

 distance. 



" Capt. Carr. — I beg to add, that the excellence of the Ayrshires as 

 milkers is fully confirmed in the Agricultural Report on Ayrshires by 

 Mr. Ayton, but I do not know that our climate will allow us to do so 

 well with them as is done in England. Our changes of temperature 

 are so much more sudden, and our cold more severe. There the cows 

 can go out upon a meadow for a few hours almost every day in winter, 

 and they are not kept upon straw and bog-hay. Many of them never 

 taste straw, but get the finest hay and turnips, as much as they can eat ; 

 and frequently meal-water or a soup made with steamed turnips, beans 

 or peas, and hay-tea, for which food each cow gives from 300 to 400 lbs. 

 of butter a-year. Here, however, I do not expect more than 150 lbs., 

 even for Ayrshires; and I believe that our own best breed, those from 

 Angeln, do not give more than 120 lbs. 



" Mr. Pabst was very desirous that more trials should be made, as 

 he thought when animals had been bought at a high price they were 

 often fed so well that they appeared better than they really were. 



" Mr. Stanginer said that he had put two Ayrshire cow^s and two of 

 his own cows (supposed to be from Angeln) in a grassy paddock. The 

 two Ayrshire cows gave 32i potts per day, the two others 29 potts. 

 The Ayrshire were the hardiest, but their milk was not richer." 



The Chairman then closed the discussion by saying, 



" I beg to sum up this interesting debate thus. No man rates higher 

 than I do the unrivalled achievements of England in breeding, of which 

 I convinced myself by what I saw in that country. In their cattle 

 particularly they have reached perfection ; but the tendency of their 

 farming is to encourage fatting quality. The Ayrshire breed seems to 

 me, more than any other British breed, to unite with that hardiness and 

 milking quality too. If we are in want of English or Scotch blood here, 

 I think the Ayrshires would suit us best, and we are much obliged to 

 Captain Carr for pointing them out to us. It is not, however, quite 



