The original stock of this country are described as of a diminutive size, ill fed, ill shaped, and yielding but a scanty return in milk. They were mostly of a black color, with large stripes of white along the chine and ridge of their backs, about the flanks, and on their faces. Their horns were high and crooked, having deep ringlets at the root--the surest proof that they were but scantily fed; the chine of their backs stood up high and narrow; their sides were lank, short, and thin; their hides thick and adhering to the bones; their pile was coarse and open; and few of them gave more than six or eight quarts of milk a day when in their best condition, or weighed, when fat, more than from a hundred to a hundred and sixty pounds avoirdupois, rejecting offal. A wonderful change has since been made in the condition, aspect, and qualities of the Ayrshire dairy stock. They are now almost double the size, and yield about four times the quantity of milk that the Ayrshire cows formerly yielded. A large part of this improvement is due to better feeding and care, but much, no doubt, to judicious crossing. Strange as it may seem, considering the modern origin of this breed, all that is certainly known touching it is, that about a century and a half ago there was no such breed as Ayrshire in Scotland. The question has therefore arisen, whether these cattle came entirely from a careful selection of the best native breed. If they did, it is a circumstance without a parallel in the history of agriculture. The native breed may indeed be ameliorated by careful selection; its value may be incalculably increased; some good qualities, some of its best qualities, may be developed for the first time; but yet there will be some resemblance to the original stock, and the more the animal is examined, the more clearly can be traced the characteristic points of the ancestor, although every one of them is improved. Youatt estimates the daily yield of an Ayrshire cow, for the first two or three months after calving, at five gallons a day, on an average; for the next three months, at three gallons; and for the next four months, at one gallon and a half. This would give eight hundred and fifty gallons as the annual average; but, allowing for some unproductive cows, he estimates the average of a dairy at six hundred gallons a year for each cow. Three gallons and a half of the Ayrshire cow's milk will yield one and a half pounds of butter. Some have estimated the yield still higher.