S 
led, and always of a rich hue; the habit has a 
great aptitude for early fattening; and the beef 
is of the finest quality, and accumulated on the 
most valuable parts. “Taking them all in all,” 
says Mr. Dickson, “no breed which I have yet 
noticed, (comprising all the Scotch breeds except 
the Ayrshires and the Galloways,) approaches in 
character and properties so near the short-horns 
as the West Highlanders. The climate of that 
part of the country which they inhabit is not 
cold, but wet and boisterous; and, as a suitable 
protection against the elements, their shaggy 
coats are well adapted. They are first-rate gra- 
zers, feeding on grass with great rapidity on their 
native pastures ; and, when they are brought into 
the arable districts, they thrive equally well on 
turnips. The usual weight which they attain, 
when fat, is from thirty to fifty stones, according 
to the size of the particular variety.” 
The Ayrshire breed of cattle has a very dis- 
tinct character from that of any of the other 
middle-horn breeds; yet it is evidently allied to 
| them, and seems to have risen out of one or more 
of them ; and, though both the time and the man- 
ner of its origin are strangely and deeply envel- 
oped in obscurity, it is known to have had no 
| existence about a century ago, and to have come 
into existence within the county whence it has 
its name. It has very extensively, and for a con- 
siderable period, though somewhat erroneously, 
had the reputation of being the most lactiferous 
breed in Great Britain ; and throughout Ayrshire, 
Lanarkshire, and Renfrewshire, large portions of 
Stirlingshire, Dumbartonshire, and Linlithgow- 
shire, and small, occasional spots in some other 
districts, it is strictly and sedulously appropriated 
to the purposes of the dairy. The beef, though 
of good quality, and possessing a good admixture 
of fat and lean, makes bad returns to the butcher, 
and is very limitedly in request; and the bull- 
calves are usually fed for veal, while the heifer- 
calves are kept to renew the stock of cows., 
Short-horn cows are much lars? yuan the Ayr- 
shires, yet do not consurje more food in propor- 
tion to their size ; and they produce more valu- 
able calves, Vicia larger quantities of milk, and 
MS less trouble in proportion to their yield of 
mic ; and a stock of them as compared to a stock 
a ; : : 
of Ayrshires occupy less room, involve less risk of 
loss from disease and death, and afford both a larger 
and a more valuable produce. The short-horns, 
therefore, ought, in all common sense, to super- 
sede the Ayrshires on every large or middle-sized 
dairy-farm; and the Ayrshires ought to be re- 
tained as milkers only on cottage-holdings, moor- 
side farms, and any other situations of very 
limited capacities for food and very small demands 
for milk. The back of prime Ayrshire cattle is 
“ight and nearly level yet has one slight de- 
sion at the top of the shoulder, and an evi- 
tendency to another over the loins; the ribs 
*etty round; the sides are deep, but show a 
‘ey in the filling up of the buttocks; the 
\ in ; 
Vial UNE Se OE Se 
ms . 
\ 
CATTLE. 
breast or front of the carcass is comparatively 
narrow; the upper surface of the carcass shows 
far less breadth at the shoulder than at the hooks, 
and has a kind of wedge-shaped outline; the 
length of the body is proportionately greater 
than the height; the legs are comparatively short ; 
the muzzle is fine; the face is broad but rather 
short; the eye is complacent; the expression of 
the face is gentle but dull; the horns are short 
and turned up; the skin is smooth and thin; the 
touch is good, yet wants the mellowness which 
accompanies a thick and soft skin; and the col- 
ours are red and white like those of the short- 
horns, but not so rich in hue, and sometimes 
mixed with black, and always arranged in blotches 
and patches, which are irregular, seldom circular, 
and never grizzled. 
Three very distinct breeds of cattle prevail in 
Ireland ; and one of these is middle-horned. 
This seems to be as evidently aboriginal in Ire- | 
land as in Great Britain; it is small, wild, light, | 
and active; it occurs in almost every district of | 
the rude and mountainous regions of the island; | 
and it may be regarded as very favourably repre- | 
sented in its best known variety, the cattle of | 
Kerry. The Kerry cow is as small as a cow of | 
the Scottish Skibos, and somewhat similar to her 
keepers and cowfeeders in towns. 
perfectly quiet; but, when disturbed or even 
slightly irritated, they bireak al 
and their coats are finely hairy and soft. 
Long-Horned Cattle—Ivreland appears, though | 
not very distinctly, to have been the country of | 
the aboriginal long-horned family of cattle; and 
it, at present, possesses two perfectly distinct 
breeds, which seem either to have had a sepa- | 
rate origin, or to have for a very long period had | 
a separate and mutually receding existence. The 
breed of the northern parts of the island, though | 
occasionally producing individuals of a somewhat 
symmetrical shape, is prevailingly coarse, clumsy, | 
dull, and exceedingly inferior. The head is large ; 
| the horns are long; the bones are coarse; the 
skin is coarse and thick ; the body, viewed either | 
in front or in rear, is exceedingly thin; and the | 
colour is of almost every shade on the body, but | 
generally white on the back. Large droves of | 
them, of three and four years of age, are con- 
in points and shape; she is, comparatively to’her | 
size, a very copious milker; and she possesses | 
the same kind of reputation throughout a large | 
portion of Ireland, which belongs to the Ayr-— 
shire cow in the western districts of the Scottish — 
lowlands. Kerry heifers are in constant demand, | 
at comparatively high prices; and they may be > 
met in droves, in many parts of the low country, | 
ready to be sold in pairs or one by one to the 
small farmers of the rural districts and the dairy- _ 
Kerry cattle, 
when unmolested or very gently treated, are 
bounds, and | 
overleap all the ordinary fences. Their horns | 
are small; their muzzle is sharp; their eyes | 
have a quick and piercing expression; their | 
horns are long, sharp-pointed, and turned-up;_ 
