HISTORY. EARLY STOCK OF AYR. 13 



present Ayrshire breed, are described by Aiton, in his 

 Treatise on the Dairy Breed of Cows, as of a diminu- 

 tive size, ill fed, ill shaped, and yielding but a scanty 

 return in milk. They were mostly of a black color, 

 with large stripes of white along the chine and ridge of 

 their backs, about the flanks, and on their faces. Their 

 horns were high and crooked, having deep ringlets at 

 the root, the plainest proof that the cattle were but 

 scantily fed ; the chine of their backs stood up high and 

 narrow; their sides were lank, short, and thin; their 

 hides thick, and adhering to their bones ; their pile was 

 coarse and open ; and few of them yielded more than 

 six or eight quarts of milk a day when in their best 

 plight, or weighed when fat more than from twelve to 

 sixteen or twenty stones avoirdupois, at eight pounds 

 the stone, sinking offal. 



" It was impossible," he continues, " that these cattle, 

 fed as they then were, could be of great weight, well 

 shaped, or yield much milk. Their only food in winter 

 and spring was oat-straw, and what they could pick up 

 in the fields, to which they were turned out almost 

 every day, with a mash of weak corn and chaff daily for 

 a few days after calving ; and their pasture in summer 

 was of the very worst quality, and eaten so bare that 

 the cattle were half starved, and had the aspect of 

 starvelings. A wonderful change has since been made 

 in the condition, aspect, and qualities, of the Ayrshire 

 dairy stock. They are not now the meagre, unshapely 

 animals they were about forty years ago ; but have 

 completely changed into something as different from 

 what they were then as any two breeds in the island 

 can be from each other. They are almost double the 

 size, and yield about four times the quantity of milk 

 that the Ayrshire cows then yielded. They were not 

 of any specific breed, nor uniformity of shapes or color ; 

 2 



