140 BLACK CATTLE. 



no expense in introducing from time to time the most 

 valuable breed of bulls and cows from England and 



o 



Germany. As the Duke of Gordon had his family 

 seat in this shire, and as the dates of the two state- 

 ments agree, it is possible that they refer to the same 

 event. John Orr, Esq. , of Barrowfield, brought from 

 Glasgow, or some part of the East County, to Grou- 

 gar, about 1769, several very fine cows, 9 which fact 

 would seem to show an occasional movement of 

 improved stock from distant districts. 



The cattle of this district, at the time we have our 

 first accounts, were black and white. Indeed, so 

 common was this color that Cully remarks, that in 

 all the accounts of cattle which he had seen in deeds 

 or statutes, they are called black cattle. Black or 

 brown with white faces, and white streaks along their 

 backs, were the prevailing colors in Ayrshire in the 

 earlier portions of the eighteenth century. 10 Aiton 

 describes them previous to 1750, as being generally 

 black, with some white on their face, belly, neck, 

 back, or tail, and in 1811 as mostly of a dark color, 

 or black, with the exception of the improved dairy 

 breed. 11 Again he speaks of them, from his own 

 recollection, as black, with white on the face, the 

 back, and the flanks, and few of the cows yielding 

 more than from one and a half to two gallons of milk 

 in the day at the height of the season. 12 Still later 

 in his writings he states that about 1770, they were 

 of small size, with high-standing, crooked horns, 



9 Survey of Ayrshire, p. 424. " Survey of Ayrshire, p. 425. 



lu Beauties of Scotland, ii, 439, 12 Quoted in Low's Animals, p. 342. 



