The Ayrshire Breed of Cattle

64 65 Society's Ayr branch for lectures, recitals and small exhibitions. The top floor will be adapted as a caretaker's fiat and a kitchen, cloakroom, etc., will be accommodated in the wing. The Ayrshire Breed of Cattle. About £2,500 will be needed to complete the work of restoration, A Lecture to the Society on 10th March, 1949. and an appeal to the public for subscriptions was launched by the Saltire Society in December, 1948. Nothing but the subscription By Hugh Bone, Esq., of a sufficient sum now stands in the way of the restoration of this interesting building to a place in the life of AJT and a condition Lately Secretary of the Ayrshire Cattle Herd Book Society worth}' of its 400 j-ears of historj*. of Great Britain and Ireland. The origin and early historj' of the Ayrshire Breed of Cattle have been dealt with by many writers. I propose here to deal with the origin and development of the breed, and how the Ayrshire cow has been improved to its present high state of efficency as a. producer of high quality milk. Earty writers state that the original strain was imported from ADDITIONS to the BIBLIOGRAPHY of AYRSHIRE DURING 1949. abroad—Holland, Scandinavia, and even Spain being mentioned. In the case of the Dutch theory of origin, it is asserted that animals FERGUSSON (JAMES). " Lowland Lairds." FABER & FABER, 16/-. of the Teeswater or Holderness breed were introduced into AjTshire. These breeds were supposed to have derived their origin from a Much of Scotland's history has been made, and many of her cross with some large bulls imported from Holland into Yorkshire greatest national leaders bred, by a class which modern governments about 1700. With regard to the Scandinavian theory, it is said are gradually pressing out of existence—that of the lairds or country that when King Haco of Norway came up the Firth of Clyde to gentry, corresponding but not quite similar to the squires of England. fight the Battle of Largs in 1263 he had with him in his ships In " Lowland Lairds" Mr. James Fergusson, the well-known several cattle which were brought ashore. The Spanish theory is biographer and historian, who has explored the muniments of somewhat similar, for it was supposed that cattle from one of the several old Scottish houses, gives a cursory survey of the history of ships comprising the Spanish Armada swam ashore after the ship this class, and close-up studies of a few representatives from the was wTecked at Portincross. All these cattle were supposed to have sixteenth century to the nineteenth. These portraits include been inter-bred with the native cattle, and this accounts for the Alexander Forrester, a rascally Stirlingshire baron; Alexander mixed colours of the Ayrshires. The ancient origin, however, is by Nisbet, the great historian of heraldry ; " Fish " Craufurd, the no means clear, but Alton in his " General View of Agriculture of friend of Fox ; Boswell's friend, " worthy Nairne," who became the Countj' of Ayr," published in 1811, states that " judicious, the judge Lord Dunsinnan, and the group of Ayrsliire " improvers " selection and mating among the native cattle, coupled with from whom Mr. Fergusson himself is descended. improved feeding and handling, was an important factor in the e\-olution of the breed." While, therefore, there maj^ have been Good or bad men, eminent figures or obscure, they all share importation of foreign blood, either at first or second hand, the a remarkable richness and raciness of character, and their brief substantial and efficient origin has come about through selection biographies illuminate some little-known corners of Scottish social and improvement of the native breed. One feature is the repeated history. changes in the colour of the breed. Originally the colour was black. The late Mr. Charles Douglas of Auchlochan in an article on Ayrshire Cattle published in the Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland in 1919, refers to the fact that the most numerous breed of cattle in Scotland was what is spoken of as the " Kylo " ; that it is usual to identify the " Kylo " with the West Highland Breed as we now have it; but that the probability is that the West Highland Breed of the present daj' did not 66 67 •exist till a later date, and that the " Kylos " or Black Cattle were -then in that quarter. Their progeny greatly multiplied in the the prevailing breed throughout those districts in which the polled «trath of the Water of Irvine." At a like period the Earl of cattle were not predominant. The Minutes of the Kilmarnock Marchmont had been improving his cattle at Berwick with stock Farmers' Club, instituted in 1793, support the view that the original from the Bishop of Durham, and his factor, Bruce Campbell, cattle of the district were black. Thirteen years later, 1806, rules carried some to Sornbeg in Kyle ; Mr. Hamilton of Sundrum used were drawn up, and the objects of the Club were inter alia stated •a bull of this stock with effect in the district about Cessnock. •as being the improvement of Agriculture and the Black Breed of Cattle in Aj-rshire. The Club held Shows for Cattle from 1808 There can be little doubt that it was through these imported •onwards, and the Shows are described in the earlier Minutes of the cattle that the colour of the dairy cow stock of South-West Scotland Club as " Shows of Black Cattle." In the Show Minute of 1811, •changed, as Aiton records, from being black, in the middle of the however, it is stated, " The Club agrees that there shall be a Show 18th Century, to brown or brown and white by the early years of •of Cattle in the Town Green of Kilmarnock." From that year the the 19th Century. M^ord " Black " is left out. A Minute of the Club in 1814 speaks of " the great demand for our dairy breed from all parts of Great Such then were the rather unpromising foundations from which Britain, but particularly England." The same Minute speaks of the Ayrshire was built up, and, whatever the original source, one thing the cattle as the " real Cunningham Breed." Cunningham is the is certain and that is that it was by careful selection and mating northern division of the County of Kyr, which is divided into three •of the cattle in the early days that the breed now stands out pre- •districts, the other two being Kyle in the middle, and Carrick in •eminently the best dairy cow in the world for producing the largest the south. There is an old rhyme which goes— quantity of milk combined with the highest butter fat at the lowest cost. " Kyle for a man, • Carrick for a coo ; There are plenty of grounds for giving the farmers of that day Cunningham for butter and cheese. full credit for the development of the breed. They were shrewd And Galloway for 'oo." men, and both in published -wTitings and private documents there is ample evidence to show that they set gi-eat store on their cattle. Other writers declare that the real name by which the breed was One such document is worth quoting, for it shows that there were first known was that of " Dunlop Cattle " derived either from a good cattle at Rowallan more than 300 years ago : it is the will Mr. Dunlop of Dunlop House (who was credited with being one of •of William Muir, elder, of Rowallan, Kilmarnock, and runs :— the introducers of the breed), or from the Parish of Dunlop in which Dunlop House is situated and which is in the Cunningham district. " The said Williame had perteining to him, the tyme of As the breed spread it became known as the " Cunningham " breed his deceis, Fourscoir and thrie tydie ky—Furrow ky, with •and is so described in the Minutes of the Kilmarnock Club already thair stirkis, fourtie ane—Thrie bullis—Nyntein stottis and referred to. When it spread to other districts of Ayrshire and to quoyis of thrie j^eir auld. ..." the neighbouring counties it became known as the " Ayrshire " Breed. Various writers prove that the Ayrshire or Cunningham Dairy Breed had well established itself over the South-Western Counties including Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Wigtownshire, Bute EARLY BREEDERS. and Arran in the early part of the 19th Century. Another chronicler, named Rawlins, writing in 1794, says :—" They have There we have then a resume of the facts concerning the early •another breed called the Dunlop which are allowed to be the best history of the breed. What of the Breeders of that early day? race for yielding milk in Great Britain or Ireland, not only for It is not till the beginning of the 19th Century that we know large quantities but also for richness and quality." Dr. A. D. •definitely who some of them were. Among the first was Theophilis Buchanan-Smith of the Institute of Animal Genetics, Edinburgh Paton, of Swinlees, Dairy, who was born in 1778 and died in 1872. University, in an article also published in the Transactions of the His herd won manj' prizes around 1835 and following years. It was Highland and Agricultural Society, in 1937, states :—" In 1769 about this time that the Ayrshire began to have stronger horns John Orr, Esq., brought to Grougar, near Kilmarnock, some cows, with the points turned upwards instead of inwards as previously. probably of the Dutch Tj'pe ; these were good cows, for one of Bulls from the Swinlees herd were spread all over the country and them cost £6, which was more than twice the price of the best cow were introduced into almost every herd of importance.

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