DALGIG TO AYR. - 275 



herdS; and swoop down like vultures, with cheques 

 from 50 to 120 gs., or more, if a crack is heard of. 

 It is a very great thing to have this fancy demand, 

 as there is always a sufficiency of good blood left, 

 and it serves to stimulate private energy, and keeps 

 the breed well up before the world. 



If a ballock has been forced well on with bean- 

 meal and bran or cake, it will fetch as much as £15 

 at two years old, and about two-thirds of that sum if 

 only oil grass. Aberdeen feeds Ayr, as the county 

 roasting pieces are not large enough, and the Ayr- 

 shire bullocks and heifers go to Edinburgh, where 

 their beef is popular at the first-class tables. 

 Bullocks rising five have been sold there as high as 

 j£30. A heifer is easiest to feed off after her first 

 calf, and 28 stone of 241bs. is very good for a dairy 

 cow. Some dealers make a trade of buying up these 

 '' furrow cows,^^ keeping them for four or five months, 

 and selling them by roup at the end of the time. The 

 bull-calves from common cows are killed soon after 

 their birth, and when the rennet has been taken out 

 for cheese, the carcase is scuffed with straw and packed 

 off to Glasgow and Edinburgh for 7s. or 8s., to some 

 of the beef-pie men. A well-fed bull-calf should get 

 his four quarts of new milk morning and evening 

 for three months. They are scarcely ever used as 

 yearlings. 



The show dodges of the Ayrshire men are inex- 

 haustible, and not unattended with danger, as one 

 man in his last twenty-four hours of a "strong prepara- 



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