JUDGING. 185 



fed by another, you must expect to be taken in. But 

 when this cheating does not happen, a large udder is 

 no certain indication. There is a look about the bag 

 which tells more to the experienced eye than the 

 mere magnitude of the part. As regards the other 

 external points that you have to judge by, they are 

 the very opposite of what you look for in a fattening 

 animal. To revert to the rough theory given above, 

 the front aspect of a good milker will be triangular 

 rather than cylindrical. The neck is thin, the 

 shoulder fine, the flank shrunken ; but Youatt's de- 

 scription of the old Cheshire milch cow is so excel- 

 lent and vivid that I take the liberty of transcribing 

 it in preference to anything I could write myself. 

 " She was a rather small, gaunt, and ill-shaped 

 animal, yet she possessed a large thin-skinned bag, 

 swelling milk-veins, shallow and light fore-quarter, 

 wide loins, a thin thigh, a white horn, a long thin 

 head, a brisk and lively eye, and a fineness and clean- 

 ness about the chops and throat." He adds, that 

 since efforts have been made to improve her type by 

 crossing with the true-built Durham, " she has be- 

 come of larger size, handsome in form, apter to fatten, 

 but she has been decidedly injured as a cheese dairy 

 cow ; her quantity of milk has not been materially 

 increased, and the quantity of caseous matter pro- 

 duced from it has been diminished and somewhat 

 deteriorated." 



With this language tally, in a great degree, the dis- 

 tinctive points of the Ayrshire breed, given so clearly 

 by Mr. Stephens, the reading of which some years 

 since first awoke my notion upon the subject. 



