ALDERKEY CROSSES. 139 



proprietors, and it is from them and their crosses 

 with tlie native stock, that the present dairy breed 

 has been formed."^ When writing in 1811, however, 

 he says that the Ayrshire dairy breed is " in a great 

 measure the native indigenous breed of the County of 

 Ayr, improved in their size, sliapes, and qualities, 

 chiefly by judicious selection, cross coupling, feed- 

 ing, and treatment, for a long series of time, and 

 with much judgment and attention ;" ^ and this ap- 

 pears from the context a more correct expression of 

 his judgment, and the fact, than the other. 



When we pass to general statements of their or- 

 igin, we find the author of the " Complete Grazier " 

 asserting them a cross of the Alderney cows with 

 Fifeshire bulls, under the name of Dunlop breed. ^ 

 Ro. Forsyth, however, writing in 1805, speaks of the 

 Dunlop breed as having been established in the parish 

 of that name for more than a century. *• Quayle, who 

 wrote the "Agricultural Survey of Jersey," states that 

 the Ayrshire breed was a cross between the Short-horn 

 and the Alderney,' and Col. LeCoutenr, of the Island 

 of Jersey, writes' that Field-Marshal Conway, the 

 Governor of Jersey, and Lieutenant-Geueral Andrew 

 Gordon, who succeeded him, nearly half a century 

 back, both sent some of the best cattle to England 

 and Scotland. Ro. Forsyth, again, that elegant and 

 apparently trustworthy writer, says ^ that the Earl of 

 Fife, and General Grant, of Banffshire, have spared 



3 Sinclair's Scotland, 1814, iii, 43. = Complete Grazier, 3d ed. p. vii. 



* Survey of .'Icyrshire, p. 42'2. e Beauties of Scotland, ii, 439. 



' Quoted in Jour. R A . S. of Eng. 1844, p. 47. 



8 Beauties of Scotland, iv, 456. 



