American farming and stock raising, with useful facts for the household, devoted to farming in all its departments . r other, there has evidently been a cross with the Dm-ham or Holderness, andperhaps also with the Alderney breed. Professor Low, in his illustrations of Britishquadrupeds, says: From the evidence of which, in the absence of authentic documents,the case admits, the dairy breed of Ayrshire cows owes the characteristics whichdistinguish it from the older race, to a mixture of the blood of the races of the continent, andof the dairy breed of Alderney. Careful selection in breeding,
American farming and stock raising, with useful facts for the household, devoted to farming in all its departments . r other, there has evidently been a cross with the Dm-ham or Holderness, andperhaps also with the Alderney breed. Professor Low, in his illustrations of Britishquadrupeds, says: From the evidence of which, in the absence of authentic documents,the case admits, the dairy breed of Ayrshire cows owes the characteristics whichdistinguish it from the older race, to a mixture of the blood of the races of the continent, andof the dairy breed of Alderney. Careful selection in breeding, and the better system of management that was generallyadopted soon after the early attempts towards improvement, doubtless had great influence inchanging the general character of the stock of that region, as would be the case with anybreed. The original stock which forms the basis of the Ayrshire breed are described byAlton as of diminutive size, ill-fed, ill-formed, and yielding but a scanty supply of milk. Theywere mostly black in color, with large stripes of white along the chine and ridge of the back, ml k^. CATTLE. 885 and about the flanks. They had also frequently more or less white about the face. They liadhigh, crooked horns with deep ringlets at the root, thick hides adhering to their bones, andfew of them yielded more than six or eight quarts of milk a day when doing their best, orweighed when fat more than from twelve to sixteen or twenty stones avoirdupois. He subsequently says: It was impossible that these cattle, fed as they then were, couldbe of great weight, well-shaped, or yield much milk. Their only food in winter and springwas oat-straw, and what they could .pick up in the fields, to which they were turned outalmost every day, with a mash of weak com and chaff daily, for a few days after calving; andtheir pasture in summer was of the very worst quality, and eaten so bare that the cattle werehalf starved, and had the aspect of starvelings. A wonderful change h
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectagriculture, bookyear
