FIRST CENTURY OF DAIRYING IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 



Will include about half the udder, you'll find, 



And when viewed from the; side they will have at each end, 



As much of the udder as 'tween them is penned. 



Her legs should be shorn, and the bones tine and clean, 



The points of the latter being quite firm and keen ; 



Skin soft and elastic as the cushion or air, 



And covered all over with short, woolly hair. 



The colours preferred are confined to a few, 



Either white and red, red aaid white, brown and white, or all brown, 



will do. 



The weight of the animal leaving the stall, 

 Should be about five or six hundred, sinking offal. 



In conclusion, no one having been for a number of years interested 

 in the Ayrshire breed of cattle could be easily led away with the 

 theory set forth by writers, such as Aiton, or others of his period, 

 that the Ayrshire were then but a modern breed, peculiar only to the 

 Dunlop portion of the county . There are two theories, however, which 

 are always worthy of a place in the history of the Ayrshire. It is 

 thought by some that the origin of the Ayrshire cow was to be found 

 in cattle which swam ashore to the islands of Bute and Arran, and 

 the Ayrshire Coast, -from the shipwrecked fleet of 160 crafts of the 

 Norwegian and Dutch kings, whose soldiers, landing at Largs, in 

 1263, were at the latter place dispersed by the youthful King of Scot- 

 land, Alexander III. They had no evidence, at the time, that native 

 cattle were on board these ships, although they learned afterwards 

 from the history of the attempted invasion that West Highlander 

 might have been aboard the fleet, as levies were exacted as tribute 

 from the Chiefs of the Western Highlands of Scotland, during the 

 progress of the fleet round the western shores of that country. 



The second theory comes -from Spanish history, where it is learned 

 that a number of the 130 ships of the fleet of Phillip II. of Spain, who, 

 in 1588, attempted to invade Britain, had dairy cattle on board, and 

 it seemed generally credited that two ships of that fleet, which were 

 wrecked on the Kirkoswald Coast of Ayrshire, carried milk cattle, 

 which swam ashore. We have authentic records of the Andelusian 

 breed of cattle being established in Spain at least a century before 

 the Spanish Armada visited the coasts of Britain. They were oi a 

 characteristic type, that is, a beautiful, middle-sized, yellow-colored 

 animal, with soft skin and long, stylish, widely upturned horns. 



Writers knew that no native cattle were, of this description, to be 

 found on the Ayrshire coast, where the cattle were mostly white, and 

 black and white, spotted. Therefore, the mixing and crossing of the 

 Spanish dairy cattle, with the native white ones, would produce a 

 yellow and white flecked animal, and with the black ones a brindled 

 animal. This theory would, on the one hand, account for the yellow 

 and white-flecked appearance of individual specimens of some of our 

 best strains of the present day more particularly of the Macleay 

 strain of fifty or sixty years ago, and for the brindled and black and 

 white specimens which permeates many of our best herds. 



There are not a few writers who claim that the Shorthorn must be 

 credited with having been the improvers of the modern Ayrshire, and 

 in proof of this assertion, state that the early development of the race 

 was due to Mr. Bruce Campbell, factor for the Earl of Marchmont, 

 on his Ayrshire property, who, about the year 1750, bought several 

 Teeswater bulls, and brought them into the County of Ayr. N'nw. 

 the anmials so introduced, were -aid to have been of a very light 

 brown or >clJt-\vish colour, spotted with white, and originally pur- 

 chased .from the Bishop of Durham, and located by the Earl of March- 

 moiit on his Berwickshire Estate. This i- Mated to In- unquestionaBly 

 true, for it had been traced that Teeswater- of this color were so in- 

 troduced, and used among herds by some of the dairy farmers in 

 Ayrshire. If so, ;m is ^hown, it wa- only in isolated ca 



