JERSEY AND AYRSHIRE GRADES. 77 



pursuit and profit, an infusion of Jersey blood will be 

 likely to secure richness of milk, and high-flavored, 

 delicious butter. Many good judges of stock recom- 

 mend this cross for dairy purposes; and the chief objec- 

 tion that can be urged against them is that they are, as 

 a breed, very deficient in quantity, which in a milk- 

 dairy would be fatal to them, while, at the same time, 

 they have little to recommend them, as the Devons 

 have, on the score of beautiful forms and symmetrical 

 proportions. Put upon a large and roomy native cow, 

 remarkable as a milker, the produce would be likely 

 to be a very superior animal. 



The Ayrshires, as already seen, have been bred with 

 reference both to quality and quantity of milk, and the 

 grades are usually of a very high order. The best 

 milkers I have ever known, in proportion to their size 

 and food, have been grade Ayrshires ; and this is also 

 the experience of many who keep dairies for the manu- 

 facture of butter and cheese, as well as for the sale of 

 milk. A cross obtained from an Ayrshire bull of good 

 size and a pure-bred short-horn cow will produce a 

 stock which it will be hard to beat at the pail, espe- 

 cially if the cow belong to any of the families of short- 

 horns which have been bred with reference to their 

 milking qualities, as some of them have. I have taken 

 great pains to inquire of dairymen as to the breed or 

 grade of their best cows, and what they consider the 

 best cows for milk for their purposes ; and the answer 

 has almost invariably been the Ayrshire and the native. 

 The Ayrshires have by no means been a failure in this 

 country, although I do not think that, as a general 

 thing, we have been so fortunate hitherto as to import 

 the best specimens of them. If any improvement has 

 been made in our dairy stock apart from that effected 

 by a higher and more liberal course of feeding, it has 

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