CHARACTERISTICS OF BREEDS. I45 



reach. Their chief merit is as large oxen, for heavy 

 labor, and for beef. Some grade cows from good milk- 

 ing dams give a fair quantity of milk, and what they 

 give is always rich, but wherever they have been intro- 

 duced, milking qualities generally deteriorate very 

 much. 



The Ayrshires are a breed especially valuable for 

 dairy purposes. Regarding its origin, Mr. Alton who 

 felt much interest in the subject, and whose opportuni- 

 ties for knowing the facts were second to those of no 

 other, writing about forty years since, says, " The 

 dairy breed of cows in the county of Ayr now so much 

 and so deservedly esteemed, is not, in their present 

 form, an ancient or indigenous race, but a breed formed 

 during the memory of living individuals and which have 

 been gradually improving for more than fifty years past, 

 till now they are brought to a degree of perfection that 

 has never been surpassed as dairy stock in any part of 

 Britain, or probably in the world. They have increased 

 to double their former size, and they yield about four 

 and some of them five times as much milk as formerly. 

 By greater attention to breeding and feeding, they have 

 been clianged from an ill-shaped, puny, mongrel race of 

 cattle to a fixed and specific breed of excellent color and 

 qualit3^ So gradually and imperceptibly were im- 

 provements in the breed and condition of the cattle 



