1868.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
4,05 
Dairy Cattle—Ayrshires. 
It is not a great many years since the breed¬ 
ers of Great Britain discovered a beautiful breed 
of cattle, having great excellences and strong 
characteristics, among the lowland Scotch, in a 
district where but a few years before, a very 
undesirable native 
breed had existed. 
It appears that the 
chief improvements 
in the cattle of the 
district of which the 
county of Ayr com¬ 
prises the principal 
part, were made by 
the introduction of 
Dutch and Short¬ 
horn blood, for the 
purpose of increas¬ 
ing milk-giving and 
feeding qualities. 
There is little doubt, 
however, that good 
breeding and judi¬ 
cious selection have 
done quite as much 
as foreign blood to¬ 
wards the formation 
of the breed. Even 
during the past fif¬ 
teen years the Ayr¬ 
shires have changed 
notably, improving 
in form and uniformity of characteristics. Be- 
cent importations are an improvement upon 
the old, and yet they indicate but little, if any, 
more rapid advance than has occurred among 
the herds of our most intelligent breeders. 
The Ayrshires have been bred for milk in a 
country where quantity and quality were both 
desirable, where the pastures are only moder¬ 
ately rich, and where rapid fattening for the 
shambles was also a desideratum. The result 
is a breed of no 
more than medium 
size, many being de¬ 
cidedly small, hardy, 
easy keepers, yield¬ 
ing a large quantity 
of excellent milk, 
rich both in butter 
and cheese. The 
claim set forth for 
the cows is that they 
will give more and 
better milk on the 
same fare than cows 
of any other breed. 
This, we believe, is 
not disputed, cer¬ 
tainly not by the 
champions of any 
British breed. They 
also are good feed¬ 
ers. Ayrshires have 
been known in this 
country since 1822, 
when we believe the 
first importation was 
made. The stock 
was kept pure, however, but a few genera¬ 
tions, as it became blended with the Short-horns. 
These animals were recorded as Short-horns in 
the first volume of the Am. Short-horn Herd 
Book, edited by Mr. L. F. Allen, and it would 
be interesting to trace their blood, if perchance 
it may not now flow in some of our noted 
Short-horn herds. In 1831 other animals were 
imported, and ever since that time the breed has 
grown in favor. Its characteristics are strongly 
marked. In some respects the breed closely 
resembles the Short-horn, particularly in gener¬ 
al form, the shape of the head and horns, and the 
delicacy of the limbs. The animals are pre¬ 
Fig. 1.—AYRSHIRE COW “DOLLY 3RD.” 
vailingly of medium size. The cows have great 
digestive capacity, as indicated by their deep, 
full bodies. They are almost uniformly large 
milkers, and excell all the points looked for in 
judging of the milking capacities of cows. The 
colors are usually red, spotted with white, the 
spots being very Avell defined, often fine, and 
sprinkled over the body in patches. Animals, 
more or less brown or black, occasionally occur. 
We present portraits of two very superior 
Fig. 2.— IMPORTED AYRSHIRE COW “FLORA.” 
cows of this breed. “ Dolly 3d,” (No. 55 of Am. 
Ayrshire Herd Book), is the property of S. M. 
& D. Wells, of Wethersfield, Conn. She gave 
by actual measurement from March 25th, I860, 
to Dec. 31st, 1867, inclusive, 10,000 quarts of 
milk, on no better feed than the rest of the herd 
of which she is a member; but her owners are 
exceedingly liberal feeders. She is character¬ 
ized by a very fine neck, small bones, a delicate 
tail, large, broad udder, aud immense milk veins. 
The local colors of the body prevent these veins 
from showing at all in the photograph, from 
which we have not departed in the engraving. 
This cow is grand dam of several of the fine 
young animals offer¬ 
ed by the Publishers 
as premiums to can¬ 
vassers for the Am¬ 
erican Agriculturist. 
The imported cow 
“Flora” is the prop¬ 
erty of Mi'. William 
Birnie, of Spring- 
field,Mass. This cow 
was the winner of 
the first prize and 
also of the sweep- 
stakes prize of the 
New England Ag’l 
Society, at Brattle* 
boro, Vt., in 1866. 
The larger apparent 
size of the animal, 
compared with Do) 
ly’s, is through a** 
oversight, as she is 
not a larger cow r . 
That the Ayrshires 
are a hardier race of 
cattle than the so- 
called natives is the 
concurrent testimony of those breeders who 
have given both a fair trial. Their record stands 
unrivaled as milk producers. The yield of but¬ 
ter varies, but the milk is almost always rich, 
and that of butter correspondingly large—fully 
as great as that of the Jersey, though lacking 
the peculiar Jersey color. The milk is besides 
very rich in cheese-forming constituents, which 
gives the cows a high value in the dairy districts 
both of Great Britain and America. In regard 
to the first introduc¬ 
tion of Ayrshires in¬ 
to this country ws 
are surprised to no. 
tice the importation 
above alluded to, 
(which was made by 
Mr. II. W. Hills, a 
New York mer¬ 
chant, who sent the 
bull and cow import¬ 
ed to Mr. Ilezekiah 
Hills, of Windsor, 
Conn., in the year 
1822,) entirely ignor¬ 
ed by Mr. Allen, in 
his recent work on 
American cattle. 
This importation has 
been made the sub¬ 
ject of investigation, 
from the fact that 
the animals were 
called Short-horns; 
and we wonder 
that it is thus over¬ 
looked. These ani¬ 
mals, “Jenny” and “Eclipse,” were bought of 
Mr. John Fifer, an Ayrshire breeder, whose 
estate was in the immediate vicinity of Glasgow, 
Scotland. Some of their descendants were fa¬ 
mous milkers; one a half Short-liorn cow, called 
“ Old Cream Pot,” gave 36 quarts of milk per 
day, and made 18 pounds of butter per week. 
