AYRSHIRE CATTLE. 285 



AYRSHIRE CATTLE; . 



WITH A PORTRAIT OF A FOUR-YEAR-OLD COyr. 



In what country are farmers more interested than in ours, in being well in- 

 formed as to the qualities of different races of cattle, and in breeding them care- 

 fully with a view to the preservation and improvement of such as best comport 

 with their particular objects and interests? Some there are whose profit from 

 cattle consists almost exclusively in the cheapest production of beef — some who 

 rely for income on their yield of milk, or butter, or cheese, while some, and 

 much the greatest number, who do much of their farm team-labor with oxen, and 

 who would combine with that object milk, and butter, and beef, to a certain ex- 

 tent. The farmer, then, as do all sensible, reflecting men engaged in any other 

 business, should endeavor, by inquiry and by observation, to inform himself how, 

 and by the adoption of what breed, his chief purposes may he best accomplished. 



If the merchant orders a ship to be built, he well knows that attention must 

 be paid, not merely to the qualities of her timbers, but to her model : if he 

 wants her to make quick voyages, with perishable cargoes, to run the gauntlet 

 through a blockading squadron, or for the barbarous uses of privateering and 

 war, he explains all to his ship carpenter, and he frames her accordingly, what 

 they call clipper-built, of a model that, as Admiral Cockburn once said to us, 

 about the Baltimore Clippers, in the time of the War, " Why, Sir, your clippers 

 take the first of a nor'-wester and, running down in the night, whiz by us like 

 wild ducks, before we have time to cut our cables." If, on the other hand, he 

 wants a ship to carry a great freight, she, too, is modeled after that intent. In 

 all other pursuits except farming, inind is exercised. First, the end is consid- 

 ered ; then the most appropriate and economical means. There is a certain 

 plan marked out, and the best means of fulfilling it well digested and perse- 

 veringly adhered to. Now is this the habit, this the precaution of American 

 farmers generally in breeding their domestic animals ? Far, very far from it : 

 with them, commonly, a cow is a cow, a sheep a sheep, and a hog a hog — 

 whereas, do not the breed and qualities of his domestic animals concern the 

 farmer in the degree that the manufacturer is interested in the structure of his 

 machinery, and the merchant in the model of his ship, and the tanner in the 

 qualities of his bark ? If, then, there be any use in advising, Ave would recom- 

 mend all to consider, not superficially, but anxiously, and with all the lights they 

 can collect, the primary objects which their position invites them to keep in 

 view, and making these the chief, while others are the subordinate considera- 

 tions, never buy, or turn out a breeding animal, without reference to these ob- 

 jects. A farmer should be as well acquainted with the breeding and promises 

 of his young stock, as the merchant with his stock in trade — his bills payable 

 and his bills receivable — or the smith with the nature of his iron or his coal. 



In this country, at present, we have of the imported and popular foreign breeds, 

 the Ayrshire, the Devon, the Short-Horn, the Alderney, and the Hereford, with 

 grades of them all. Some of these we have ourselves imported, others we have 

 owned, many years ago ; and with the best specimens of all profess to be familiar, 



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