292 THE BREEDS OF LIVE-STOCK 



the cattle were starved in winter, being scarcely able to 

 rise in the spring, and never were in condition fit for the 

 market." Such were the conditions from which the hardy, 

 useful race of Ayrshire cattle has come. Culley, who 

 wrote a treatise on live-stock before the year 1790, does 

 not mention the Ayrshire as one of the recognized breeds 

 of the country. From this we may conclude that their 

 history as a breed begins some time shortly after the first 

 of the past century ; previous to that time, they were one 

 of the coarse varieties of cattle which formerly occupied 

 all of the southern part of the country. 



The earliest recognition which they received as a breed 

 was given by a Mr. Aiton, who published a treatise on the 

 Dairy Husbandry of Ayrshire, in 1825. He describes 

 them, according to Low, as being a puny, unshapely race, 

 not superior to the cattle of the higher districts, referring, 

 perhaps, to the West Highland or Kyloe cattle. He 

 further states that the Ayrshires, at that time, were mostly 

 black in color, marked with white in the face, down the 

 back and flank, and that few of the cows gave more than 

 a gallon and a half or two gallons of milk per day when 

 fresh. They were very small in size, so small that the 

 average dressed weight of mature animals was but two 

 hundred and eighty pounds. 



This description was written, it is asserted, after the in- 

 troduction into the Ayrshire district of the cattle descended 

 from the crosses made with the Teeswater or Holderness 

 stock from Durham, England. The Earl of Marchmont 

 is supposed to have brought this foreign blood into Scot- 

 land between 1724 and 1740. This importation of a bull 

 and several cows was taken to the earl's estates in Ber- 

 wickshire on the east coast of Scotland. 



It has been thought that the Alderney (presumably, 



