288 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



be led to confound the Jersey with the Ayrshire cow. Thus, in spite of the ab- 

 sence of authentic documents to this effect, one may affirm that the milking race 

 of Ayrshires owes the characters which distinguish it from the ancient race to 

 Jts cross with the English races derived from the Continent, and with the milk- 

 ing race of Alderney. 



Mr. Low proceeds to describe the Ayrshire, as illustrated in the portrait prepared 

 for this number. The modern Ayrshire, he says, may occupy the fifth or sixth 

 class, as respects hight, among the races of Great Britain. The horns are small 

 and turned in at the extremity, as those of the Alderney. Their shoulders are 

 light, while they are large and deep across the loins — a form which is most 

 generally met with in deep milkers. The skin is moderately soft to the touch, 

 and of a yellow orange color, which is also seen on the eyelids and udder. — 

 The predominant color is a reddish brown, mixed more or less with white. The 

 muzzle is ordinarily black, but often flesh-colored. The limbs are lank, the 

 neck small, and the head exempt from coarseness. The muscles of the internal 

 parts of the thighs are thin, and the haunch droops at the tail — a characteristic 

 equally of the Alderney, and which, though it destroys the symmetry of the ani- 

 mal, is not considered as incompatible with an aptitude to an abundant secretion 

 of milk. The teats are of middle size and sufficiently firm. The cows are very 

 tame and docile, and sufficiently hardy to do well on the most ordinary food. — 

 They give a great quantity of milk, in proportion to their size and the food they 

 consume, and their milk is of excellent quality. When in good heart on grass 

 pasture, they give 800 to 900 gallons in the year ; while as to the younger and 

 less productive, 600 gallons may be considered a good medium produce for 

 the whole herd of cows in the low country, and sometimes a less average for the 

 entire herd of cows in the mountains. 



Few of this race of cattle are raised for beef, and the male calves are sold to 

 the butcher, either at the cow's foot, or after having fed for a longer or shorter 

 time on milk. When the cows go dry, they fatten promptly ; but the great merit 

 of the race is in its fitness for the uses of the dairy. The attention of breeders 

 being exclusively turned to this point, the animals have acquired, in an eminent 

 deffree, qualities of that kind ; and their exterior qualities present all the char- 

 acters that indicate this particular disposition, more than those which denote an 

 aptitude to early maturity and to fat. Furthermore, those, says Low, who suppose 

 that the Ayrshire race unite the properties of milch with those of beef cattle, en- 

 tirely confound the distinctive characters of the two. The Ayrshire occupies the 

 first rank among dairy cattle, but they deserve an inferior place among cattle de- 

 signed for the butcher. 



The Ayrshire race has been much spread over the counties around its original 

 reo-ion of country, where good milkers belong. It now forms the predominant 

 herds in Renfrew, Dunbarton, Stirling and Lanark, and has extended in the coun- 

 ties of Dumfries, Wighton and Kircudbright. The Ayrshire has been carried in- 

 to England, but has not there preserved the reputation it enjoys in its original 

 pastures. All cows succeed best in the localities where they have been raised ; 

 and those of Ayrshire appear to have this particularity— that they have a great 

 tendency to fat, and to undergo a corresponding diminution in the production of 

 milk, when transported where the herbage is richer than that to which they 

 have been accustomed. They have been tried in the great milk establishments 

 ia London, but have been there always abandoned for Yorkshires and larger 

 races. 



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