188 STOCK IMPORTED BY 



some seven or eight years ago by the State Agricultural Society. 

 The improved Ayrshire stock of the present day, which are 

 descended from the famous Swinley stock, and of which the re- 

 cent importation by the Society consists, differ in some respects 

 from those above described by Aiton. The head is shorter, 

 wider between the eyes and horns ; thinner in the fore-quarter ; 

 the shoulders finer and more closely set ; the limbs and body 

 shorter, and the joints more closely and firmly set ; the abdomen 

 deeper and more capacious ; the udder broader, the milk- veins 

 more prominent, and the teats hanging directly down ; hair 

 longer, though more silky, and finer in the handling, and are 

 altogether a hardier race of animals than the Ayrshires of form- 

 er days. 



" The color," says Robertson, " is generally a brown of many 

 hues, from dark to yellow, intermixed and mottled in many a 

 varied form and proportion with white ; almost none are of one 

 color. In a herd of forty or fifty, there will no two of them be 

 alike in color ; in this respect exhibiting a diversity not unlike 

 to a bed of tulips, and of as many hues and shades, in an end- 

 less variety of beauty." 



The North Devon stock has long been celebrated as a breed 

 of cattle beautiful in the highest degree. For the dairy, they 

 cannot be considered equal to the Ayrshire, but viewing them 

 as uniting the three qualities of working, fattening, and milk- 

 ing, they may be considered as unrivalled. Some of the writers 

 upon English stock give them a high rank as milkers, and Mr. 

 Conyers, of Capt Hill, near Epping, a district almost exclusively 

 devoted to the purposes of the dairy, preferred the North De- 

 vons, u on account of their large produce, whether in milk, but- 

 ter, or by suckling." 



" The North Devon oxen," says an English writer, " are unri- 

 valled at the plough. They have a quickness of motion which 

 no other breed can equal, and which very few horses exceed. 

 They have also a docility and goodness of temper, and also a 

 stoutness and honesty at work, to which many teams of horses 

 cannot pretend." 



Such is the character given of the breeds of cattle (a bull and 

 four cows of each), which the Society have imported with a 



