YIELD INFLUENCED BY CLIMATE. 19 



annual average of a cow ; but, allowing for some unpro- 

 ductive cows, he estimates the average of a dairy at GOO 

 gallons per annum for each cow. Three gallons and a 

 half of the Ayrshire cow's milk will yield one and a 

 half pounds of butter. He therefore reckons 257 

 pounds of butter, or 514 pounds of cheese, at the rate 

 of 24 pounds to 28 gallons of milk, as the yield of every 

 cow, at a fair and perhaps rather low average, in an 

 Ayrshire dairy, during the year. Aiton sets the yield 

 much higher, saying that " thousands of the best Ayr- 

 shire dairy-cows, when in prime condition and well fed, 

 produce 1000 gallons of milk per annum ; that in gene- 

 ral three and three quarters to four gallons of their milk 

 will yield a pound and a half of butter ; and that 27^ 

 gallons of their milk will make 21 pounds of full-milk 

 cheese." Mr. Rankin puts it lower at about 650 to 

 700 gallons to each cow ; on his own farm of inferior 

 soil, his dairy produced an average of 550 gallons only. 

 One of the four cows originally imported into this 

 country by John P. Gushing, Esq., of Massachusetts, 

 gave in one year 3864 quarts, beer measure, or about 

 966 gallons, at ten pounds to the gallon, being an aver- 

 age of over ten and a half beer quarts a day for the 

 whole year. It is asserted, on good authority, that the 

 first Ayrshire cow imported by the Massachusetts Soci- 

 ety for the Promotion of Agriculture, in 1837, yielded 

 sixteen pounds of butter a week, for several weeks in 

 succession, on grass feed only. These yields aro not 

 so large as those stated by Aiton ; but it should, per- 

 haps, be recollected that our climate is less favorable 

 to the production of milk than that of England and Scot- 

 land, and that no cow imported after arriving at matur- 

 ity could be expected to yield as much, under the same 

 circumstances, as one bred on the spot where the trial 

 is made, and perfectly acclimated. 



