THE AYRSHIRE. 



of Ayrshire, owing to the action of the Gulf Stream, which enables the 

 farmers to produce early crops of vegetables. 



The pasture land of the country is devoted to dairy stock, chiefly 

 for making butter and cheese, a small part only being used for fatten- 

 ing cows when too old to keep for the dairy. 



The breed has undergone very marked improvements since Aiton 

 wrote in 1811. The local demand -for fresh dairy products has very 

 naturally taxed the skill and judgment of the farmers and dairymen 

 to the utmost through a long course of years ; and thus the remark- 

 able milking qualities of the Ayrshires have been developed to such 

 a degree that they may be said to produce a larger quantity of rich 

 milk and butter in proportion to the food consumed, or the cost of 

 production, than any other of the purebred races. 



The owners of dairies in the County of Ayr and the. neighbourhood 

 were generally small tenants, who took charge oi their stock them- 

 selves, saving and breeding from the offspring of good milkers only. 



It is thought by some and probably it is true of the Ayrshire 

 that in the breeding of animals it is the male which gives the external 

 form, or the buoyant muscular system of the young, while the female 

 imparts the respiratory organs, the circulation of the blood, the mucous 

 membranes, and the organs of secretion. If this principle be true, it 

 'iollows that the milking qualities come chiefly from the mother, and 

 that the bull cannot materially alter the conditions which determine 

 the transmission of these respective qualities, especially when they 

 are so strongly marked as they are in the Ayrshire or Jersey races. 

 It might also go to show why an Ayrshire bull, when mated with 

 medium bred Shorthorn cows, generally give such splendid results as 

 regards fineness of structure. 



O-f course, there are many excellent dairymen who maintain that it 

 is more important to the perfection of their dairy to use good bulls 

 from an undoubted milking strain, claiming that perfection is more 

 surely transmitted by the male than the female. Others still main- 

 tain that both parents are represented in the offspring, and that 

 it is impossible to say beforehand what parts of the derivative system 

 are to be ascribed to the one parent, and what to the other, and that 

 there is a blending and interfusion of the qualities of both. 



Mr. Aiton, in describing the mode of rearing calves in the dairy 

 districts of Scotland and we may add it is also die pra'ctice generally 

 followed throughout the dairying districts of New South Wales among 

 the better class oi dairymen says : " They are fed on milk with 

 seldom any admixture ; and they are mot permitted to suckle their 

 dame, but are taught to drink milk by the hand from a (dish. They 

 are generally fed on milk only, for the first four, five, or six weeks, 

 and are then allowed >from two to two and one-half quarts of new 

 milk each meal, twice in the twenty-four hours. Some never give 

 them aoiy other food when young, except milk, lessening the quantity 

 when the calf begins to eat grass or other food, which it generally 

 does when about five weeks old, withdrawing it entirely about the 

 seventh or eighth week of the cal-f's age. Some feed their calves 

 partly with meal mixed in the milk, after the third or fourth week; 

 others introduce gradually some new whey among the milk, first 

 mixed with meal, and, when the calf gets older, they withdraw that 

 milk, and feed it with whey and porridge. Hay-teai, juices of peas and 

 beans, or peas or bean straw, linseed beaten into powder, are all 

 used ; sometimes with advantage." 



The calf of to-day may be said to be pretty well the same sort of 

 delicate, complex creature it was in Mr. Alton's day, and farmers have 

 tto study its nature just as studiously as of yore; hence many dairy- 

 men are now much wedded to the artificial system of suckling calves. 



121. 



