AYR TO DUMFRIES. 317 



young cattle also suffer if they are brouglit in spring 

 on to the granite. The queys are generally put to 

 in their third spring. Galloway calves, which are 

 dropped early with a view to the Highland Society, 

 which dates from New-Year^s Day, suck five or six 

 months, as crack showers say it is " the cheapest 

 thing, after all, to let them have their OAvn rights.^" 

 A great proportion of them are sadly sacrificed to 

 the sale of milk and butter, if they are dropped near 

 a town. After nursing a calf at the teat, £2 to £3 

 is often made in a black cow dairy. They are not re- 

 markable milkers ; but still, the faculty runs in 

 some strains, and it seems pretty well settled by 

 those who have kept bol h, and speak from no party 

 spirit, that they give more butter for less milk 

 than the Ayrshires. There is no better and finer 

 mottled beef in the world than the Galloway and 

 Angus, and so the Smithfield prices show, and per- 

 haps the daintiest morsel is a three-year-old heifer 

 that has never had a calf. 



The Dumfries Wednesday is a great market for 

 Galloways from May to November, and then it falls 

 off before Martinmas. During this period yearlings 

 and two-year-olds are dispersed all over the Stewartry, 

 and then they are bought up again two years after 

 for St. Faith's and Brough Hill. Woolpit in Suffolk 

 is a great fair for them, and so are Penrith and Car- 

 lisle- The last Wednesday of September, which falls 

 on the week before Brough Hill, is one of the largest 

 Dumfries markets, and so is the October Wednes-^ 



