196 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



a bad celebrity from its connection with the pleuro-pneumonia. 

 Tlie Shorthorns are the most widely distributed, and the most 

 universally popular of the known varieties of cattle. This 

 favorite race is rapidly planting itself wherever there is any 

 improvement in agriculture, or the rearing of cattle encouraged, 

 or the English language spoken. In the rich grazing districts 

 of the West it thrives better than it does in England itself. 

 The Ayrshire cow is the favorite dairy animal ; she has all the 

 external marks which indicate a good milker. The stomach in 

 this breed seems wholly out of proportion, but the Ayrshiremau 

 admires a big belly, as the laboratory where the stock of food 

 is converted into milk. The loin is broad and forms well in 

 with the wide hips and capacious pelvis ; the rumps are wide, 

 and tolerably high ; the tail long and slender ; the legs straight ; 

 the thigh rather thin ; and the udder is broad and large, extend- 

 ing well forward with thin, flexible skin, and teats wide apart 

 and short. In the genuine Ayrshire cow, everything is sacri- 

 ficed to the udder and belly — the breeder evidently believing in 

 " no udder, no cow." 



With our native stock the Ayrshire has been crossed with suc- 

 cess, an admirable hardy dairy cow being the result. In this 

 Commonwealth four grade Ayrshire cows, gave over three 

 thousand pounds of milk in twenty days, being an average of 

 thirty-eight pounds per day for each cow. From the milk one 

 hundred and twenty-nine pounds of butter were made. The 

 cross is growing in popularity with us. To such dairy districts 

 as ours, either the pure bloods or grades are admirably adapted. 

 The milk of the Jersey cow is particularly rich in butyraceous 

 particles, and is of a deep yellow. The butter made from it is 

 always of a deep golden color, and this character is so strong 

 that a few cows will be enough to give the butter of a whole 

 dairy that desirable flavor and hue. As such butter will always 

 command in market from twenty-five to thirty per cent, more 

 than any other, we should draw our supplies, whether fof' cross- 

 breeding or of thoroughbreds, from herds already introduced into 

 this country, and habituated to the great change from their 

 moist native English pastures, and, as it were, Americanized. 

 We have now in this country such fine herds of almost all the 

 desirable breeds, that there is no necessity of looking abroad. 



Stock-breeding has now assumed such importance amongst 



