CATTLE, AYRSHIRES. 77 
tion to the shape and beauty, and attempt to produce fat and sleek cattle, 
which would be admired at the shows, has had a tendency to improve 
W hat is only their quality as grazing cattle, and that at the certainty of 
diminishing their value as milkers. 
Yields of Milk, Butter, and Cheeso. 
Experiments made early in the century, to determine the relative value' 
Of different breeds for milk and butter, we find as follows : 
“In some experiments conducted at the Earl of Chesterfield’s dairy 
at Bradley Hall farm, it appeared that, in the height of the season, tho 
Koldevness would yield seven gallons and a quart ; the Long-Horn and 
the Alderney, four gallons three quarts ; and the Devon, four gallons ono 
pint, per day. When this was made into butter, the result was, from the 
Holdcrness, thirty-eight and one-half ounces ; from the Devon, twenty- 
eight- ounces ; and from tho Alderney, twenty-five ounces.” 
The Ayrshires average five gallons per day, and from that is produced 
thirty-four ounces of butter. 
This shows the degree of superiority the breed has obtained in Mr. 
Youatt’s time. 
Mr. Aitou, indeed, asserted that 3 3-4 to 4 gallons of this milk would 
yield a pound and a half of butter, and that 27 1-2 gallons of milk would 
yield 21 pounds of full milk cheese ; and that Ayrshires in their best con- 
dition and well fed would yield 1,000 gallons of milk in a year. 
With respect to yield in the United States, we have the record that tho 
first Ayrshire cow imported by the Massachusetts Society for the Promo- 
tion of Agriculture, in 1837, yielded 1G pounds of butter a week, for several 
Weeks in succession, on grass feed only. 
Mr. Rankin, a most reputable English authority, reporting upon a Kylo 
farm in Ayrshire, holds that Mr. Aiton’s estimate is too high. In relation 
to two farms visited, upon one of which was kept from twenty' to thirty 
cows, and on the other from thirty to forty very superior cows, he says 
of the first, that, “at the best of tho season the average milk from each 
cow, is 9 Scots pints (4 1-2 gallons,) and in a year 1,300 Scots pints 
(G50 gallons,); that in the summer season, 64 pints (32 gallons,) of 
entire milk will make an Ayrshire stone (24 pounds) of cheese; and 96 
pints (48 gallons) of skimmed milk will produce the same quantity ; and 
that 180 pints (90 gallons) will make 24 pounds of butter.” Of tho 
other farm, ho states that “the average produce of each is 1,375 pints 
((>87 1-2 gallons) ; and adds as his belief, on the whole, that although 
there may be Ayrshire cows capable of giving 900 gallons in a year, it 
W d be ditncult to biin^ half a score of them together ; and that in stocks 
