174 THE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



There are many interesting features in dairy management 

 peculiar to the south-western counties of Scotland. The cows 

 are frequently let to men who either pay a fixed rent per cow, or 

 deliver over to the farmer a stated weight of cheese ! these men 

 are provincially called *' bowers." The farmer owns the cow, 

 and furnishes a stated quantity of food, the bower and his 

 family performing the whole of the manual labour of feeding 

 and attending to the cows and making the cheese. On many 

 of the Ayrshire dairy farms there is a very limited area of 

 permanent pasture, many of the farms being under arable 

 culture, and managed on a five or six course rotation. The 

 cows are principally pastured on the one or two years' seed 

 layers, which on good land keep a large quantity of stock. 

 We have known twenty-four imperial acres of second year's 

 seeds to pasture twenty-two Ayrshire dairy cows and a bull 

 from the first of May to the end of September. The Scotch 

 dairy farmers, as a rule, use hay very sparingly; on most 

 farms oat straw is substituted, and of this they have an 

 abundant supply. When the cows are let to a bower, the 

 usual allowance is from five to six tons of roots per cow, in 

 about equal proportions of swedes and common or Aberdeen 

 turnips, and 2Jcwt. of bean meal to each animal. The rent 

 per cow varies in accordance with the quality of the pastures 

 and the merits of the herd. From 3cwt. to 4cwt. of cheese per 

 cow when rendered in kind, and from lOZ. to 12Z. per cow when 

 paid in cash are the average rates which are now obtained. 

 On many of the high-lying farms, where the land is less suited 

 to arable culture, with a large breadth of inferior land in 

 permanent pasture, and at a low rent per acre — on this class 

 of soil, it is now considered to be the most profitable system 

 of management to combine dairy farming with stock rearing. 

 Hence on many farms of this description the Ayrshire cows are 

 crossed with a polled G-alloway bull, and the whole of the 

 produce reared on the farm, and either sold off as stores to the 

 grazier, or made off fat to the butcher, at from two to two and 

 a half years. The crosses prove kindly feeders, and attain 

 from eight to nine scores per quarter, at the ages mentioned 

 above. On some of the better qualities of land the Shorthorn 

 bull has been used to cross the cows. With good keep the 



