THE ATRSH1KE BREED. 341 



as could be agreed upon, one-half of the crop going to the 

 landlord as rent, and the other remaining to the tenant, to 

 enable him to maintain his family and cultivate his farm. 

 There being scarcely any enclosures, the horses and cattle 

 were either tethered during the summer months, or intrusted 

 to the discretion of the shepherd and his cur, by whom they 

 were kept in continued agitation, being impelled, through 

 famine, to fly from their bare leas, and commit continued de- 

 predation on the adjacent crops. The cattle being starved 

 during winter, were hardly able to rise without assistance in 

 spring, and were never in fit condition for the market. No 

 tenant could command money to stock his farm, and scarce 

 a landlord could raise the means to improve his estate. Such 

 was the condition, not of Ayrshire alone, but of a great part 

 of Scotland, during half the reign of George III., and down 

 to the times which men yet living can remember. Ayrshire 

 did not surpass, in the course of improvement, u like 



itself, but rather lagged behind. Scarcely any thing that 

 deserves the name of agricultural improvement was effected 

 in it until after the disastrous close of the American war; 

 most of what has been done has been effected since the com- 

 mencement of the present century ; and much of it within a 

 few years. It is under these circumstances that a race of 

 cattle has been formed and perfected, which, with relation to 

 the purposes to which it is especially destined, ranks with 

 some of the most useful produced in Britain. 



Authentic records are wanting to shew by what progres- 

 sive steps the Dairy Breed of Ayrshire has been moulded 

 into its present form. That it was late in arriving at the 

 estimation in which it is now held, is sufficiently known. Mr 

 (Julley. who wrote his treatise on live-stock before the year 

 1790, does not even mention the Ayrshire as one of the re- 

 cognised breeds of the country, nor once refer to it in the subse- 

 quent editions of his work : and Colonel Fullarton, in describ- 

 ing the country in which it was found, speaks of it in a man- 

 ner so general, as to shew that he did not regard it as any 



