ORIGIN OF AYRSHIRE CATTLE. 



WE have seen that cattle abounded in Scotland 

 before the historical epoch ; and throughout the 

 earlier centuries, the pasturage of herds and the man- 

 ufacture of cheese are recorded fragmentarily and 

 concisely, in the charters and excerpts of the monks 

 and earlier historians. We have it stated by a com^ 

 petent writer that a breed existed in Dunlop, a 

 parish of Cunningham, as early as the year 1700, 

 which was noted for quantity of milk in proportion 

 to size ; and the same writer gives it as a veritable 

 fact that a certain Barbara Gilmour, fleeing the county 

 to escape the barbarities accompanying the religious 

 persecutions, under the last princes of the house of 

 Stuart, introduced upon her return from Ireland the 

 manufacture of cheese, which since that period has 

 been the great business of that neighborhood. He 

 proceeds, " Sensible that their situation was more 

 favorable for this than for any other purpose, the 

 people bestowed upon it the greatest care and turned 

 it to the best advantage." 1 In this sentence we have 

 the key to the origin of the improved breed. 



In the region which included this county we have 

 records of the earliest attempts at civilization ; and in 



1 Ro. Forsyth, Beauties of Scotland, ii, 441. 



