188 



MILCH CATTLE THE AYRSHIRE 



The records l of the early history of the breed fix the 

 date of the beginning of improvement from 1750 to 1780. 

 Before that time the native progenitors of the Ayrshire were 



FIG. 3. 



8 

 16 



POINTS OBSERVED IN JUDGING .DAIRY CATTLE* 



small, inferior, irregularly-shaped animals, with short crumpled 

 horns, and of a black, black-and-white, or brown colour, but 

 hardy, and suited to the humidity and inferiority of the 

 1 Colonel Fullarton's Survey of Ayrshire; Alton's General View of the 

 Agriculture of the County of Ayr, 1811 ; Aiton's Dairy Husbandry of 

 Ayrshire, 1825 j Low's Domesticated Animals, 1845 ; Fan-all's "Essay on 

 the Ayrshire Breed of Cattle " in the Transactions of the Highland Society 

 for 1876, and in Vol. I. of the Ayrshire Herd Book, 1877 ; Gilbert 

 Murray's notice of the "Ayrshire Breed of Cattle" in J. Coleman's Cattle 

 of Great Britain, 1875 \ and Wm. Rodden's "Presidential Address to the 

 Ayrshire Importers and Breeders Association of Canada," in Vol. I. of 

 The Canadian Ayrshire Herd Record, 1886. Ortelius, writing in 1573, 

 speaks of a superior class of oxen in Carrick ; but his remarks no doubt 

 refer to the ancestors of the Galloway breed, not to Ayrshire cattle as the 

 term is now understood. 



