Ayrshire Cattle in America.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 2021, 20 June 1885, Page 6 (Supplement)

Ayrshire Cattle in America.

In the courdo of a pap^r rer.d before l!io Washington Institute, Mr. William Fairweather, M'L&ne, Pennsylvania, gave some information a? to American experience with tho Ayrshire breed of cattle. Ho said : — "Ihavoonlj slaughtered one Ayrshire in Asieiica. Bho was i'J years old, and would not breed, list live weight was ll.">0 lbs. ; dressed meat, 5% lbs. The tallow was whito, and the beef well marbled, which is the characteristic of Ayrshire beef, %a they do not lay on fat in chunks on the outside, and their real weight ia therefore very deceiving to those unacquainted with this peculiarity. Grado steers produced by a cross of an Ayrshire bull upon a native or Durham cow will, at two years old, generally outweigh the Durham. I have just got from a neighboring farmer the weights of two grade Durham steers, their sire (a thoroughbred shorthorn) weighing nearly a ton. Tho gentleman also raised a pair of grade Ayrnhires the same year from a thoroughbred bull weighing about 1500 lbs. At two years old tho Durham grades weighed 182/» lbs. for the pair ; the Ayrshire grades weighed 18 10 lbs. The dams of the two lota were fair-sized native cows. The steers were all brought up together, and had tho same care and treatment. I give this as a matter of fact. " Tho value of a breed of cattle for milk is not to be ascertained by the performance of a few individual animals, nor of selected animals from large herds, neither is it to be learned from the statements of interested parties. I will therefore not put forward the yields of any single animal, nor of any of my own herd, but I will give the yields o! a few entire herds for a series of years, and also the opinions of responsible and reliable parties who have studied and experimented with the Ayrshire, not for money speculation, but for the information of the public " For a period of seven years tho Cherry Brook herd of Ayrshire, of Weston, Mass., averaged '2o'.',?> quarts of milk per cow annually. The Waushakum herd, of South Framingingham, Mass., in the same time averaged 2121) quarts per cow annually. For three years the herd of C. M. Winulow of Brandon, Vermont, averaged 658G lbs. each, they averaging to go dry 30 days. Theso figurea, be it remembered, included every animal giving milk in the entire herds during the years on trial. "From careful experiments conducted by Dr. E. L. Sturtevant with Ayrshire cows, for a period of ten years, on high feed and low feed and ordinary feed, be arrived at the following conclusion : That the nominal yield of good Ayrshires under plain farmers' keeping is in excess of 2000 quarts per cow per year, and that improvement in feeding can add 500 quarts to the yield. These figures give a good idea of what the Ayrshire will aocomplish in the hands of the ordinary farmer. Weie wo to soleot 25 cows from a herd of 500 we could probably be able to give much bigger figures, but would that be honest, or would it be representative of the breed ? Robert MAdam, a very successful Scottish dairy farmer, now resident in America, Bays of the Ayrshire :— " Carefully selected herds of this bieed on good grazing lands will yield, during the flush pastures of June from 30 to 401bs. of milk per cow daily, and a picked cow may reach GOlbs. (milked twice daily). Mr. M'Ad&m, from a herd of 100 cows, has received .'Sslbs. of milk per cow at the best of the reason, and from another herd of 70 cows he has received an average of 351bs. per cow daily, the milk yielding lib of butter to 231b«. of milk. These cows continued to give milk 270 days on an average in 12 months. Mr. MAdam, in 27 years' experience with Ayrshire* in dairying, has averaged SOOlbs. of cheese per oow per year, and he has known many dairies of selected cows that have yielded GOOlba per cow per year. The value of the Ayrshire oow for cheese-making purposes will be better appreciated when we compare these figures with the average yield of dairies in the State of New York, which is put at SOOlba. per cow per annum. In the principle dairy districts in Scotland the Ayrshire is almost exclusively the dairy cow, and in tho famous cheese and butter-producing countries of Cheshire, Derbyshire, and Somersetshire, in England, they are very numerous and popular. That Ayrshire milk makes a checje of superior quality to that made in this country from native and other mixed milks can bo shown by the prices paid for the two makes. Last fall, when fine factory cheese waa quoted in New York at GOs. Gd. per hundredweight of 1121b5., tho Cheddars of Ayrshire, Scotland, were felling at OHa. per cwt.