CATTLE. 



55 



and about the flanks. They had also frequently more or less white about the face. They had 

 high, crooked horns with deep ringlets at the root, thick hides adhering to their bones, and 

 few of them yielded more than six or eight quarts of milk a day when doing their best, or 

 weighed when fat more than from twelve to sixteen or twenty stones avoirdupois. 



He subsequently says: &quot;It was impossible that these cattle, fed as they then were, could 

 be of great weight, well-shaped, or yield much milk. Their only food in winter and spring 

 was oat-straw, and what they could pick up in the fields, to which they were turned out 

 almost every day, with a mash of weak corn and chaff daily, for a few days after calving; and 

 their pasture in summer was of the very worst quality, and eaten so bare that the cattle were 

 half starved, and had the aspect of starvelings. A wonderful change has since been made in 

 the condition, aspect, and qualities of the Ayrshire dairy stock. They are not now the 

 meagre, unshapely animals they were forty years ago, but have completely changed into some- 



AYRSHIRE COW. 



Property of Alex. M. Fulford, Bel Air, Maryland. 



thing as different from what they were then, as any two breeds in the island can be from each 

 other. They are almost double the size, and yield abcyit four times the quantity of milk 

 that the Ayrshire then yielded. They were not of any specific breed, nor uniformity of 

 shape or color; neither was there any fixed standard by which they could be judged.&quot; 



Better feeding and care, as well as judicious crossing, must have been the combined 

 cause of the great improvement of these cattle. The Ayrshires were first introduced into 

 the United States about the year 1822, but were imported in larger numbers about the year 

 1830. They were at that time usually of a dark red or brown color, flecked with white, 

 having black noses. Those more recently imported have seemed to be more of the Short- Horn 

 type, as far as color is concerned, the red being of a lighter shade, with more of white. They 

 are quite hardy, and adapt themselves to the climate and conditions of this country very 

 readily, although as a breed they do not produce as much milk in quantity as in their native 



