DALGIG TO AYR. 279 



one side and for cheese and accurate information as 

 to the whole crop on the other, and it often hap- 

 pens that a referee has to be called in. The ori- 

 ginal engagement is for twelve months, but some 

 bowers have gone on for 17 years, and there is a re- 

 newal of the lease every year, varying according as a 

 better or worse field comes into the rotation. Many 

 farmers get as high as 15 stone of 241bs. for a cow, 

 and it has been known to reach 20 stone ; and gene- 

 rally 2 stone discount is allowed for bringing up a 

 quey calf. The bower's profits are eked out by feed- 

 ing a few pigs on sweet milk, whey, and bran, and 

 making skim cheese ; and if a cow calves a few weeks 

 before the cheese season begins, he gets the advan- 

 tage of the butter. Of course an owner has to look 

 out pretty sharp that the cheese is not starved during 

 the year, so as to embroil him with the cheese factor, 

 and therefore bowers, who do not keep their places 

 and are perpetually working up to a leaving, soon 

 get a bad name. 



The Ayrshire Agricultural Association was the 

 permanent result of the Highland Society's visit to 

 Ayr in 1835 (a period of scum cheese and salt butter), 

 which it has never carecl to repeat. The new 

 local Society moved about till 1851, and since then 

 its meetings have been regularly held in Ayr. The 

 introduction of the Cheddar mode of cheese-making, 

 and its extension throughout the south west of Scot- 

 land, havebeen its chief triumph. The Dunlop or "full 

 milk cheese'^ system (so called because made from 



