A cow with these marks will generally be of a quiet and docile temper, which greatly increases her value. A cow that is of a quiet and contented disposition feeds at ease, is milked with ease, and yields more than one of an opposite temperament; while, after she is past her usefulness as a milker, she will easily take on fat, and make fine beef and a good quantity of tallow, because she feeds freely, and when dry the food which went to make milk is converted into fat and flesh. But there is no breed of cows with which gentle gentleness of treatment is so indispensable as with the Ayrshire, on account of her naturally nervous temperament. If she receives other than kind and gentle treatment, she will often resent it with angry looks and gestures, and withhold her milk; and if such treatment is long continued, will dry up; but she willingly and easily yields it to the hand that fondles her, and all her looks and movements toward her friends are quiet and mild. The Ayrshires in their native country are generally bred for the dairy, and for no other object; and the cows have justly obtained a world-wide reputation for this quality. The oxen are, however, very fair as working cattle, though they cannot be said to excel other breeds in this respect. The Ayrshire steer maybe fed and turned at three years old; but for feeding purposes the Ayrshires are greatly improved by a cross with the short horns, provided regard is had to the size of the animal. It is the opinion of good breeders that a high-bred short horn bull and a large-sized Ayrshire cow will produce a calf which will come to maturity earlier, and attain greater weight, and sell for more money than a pure-bred Ayrshire. This cross, with feeding from the start, may be sold fat at two or three years old, the improvement being most noticeable in the earlier maturity and size. In the Cross with the short horn, the form ordinarily becomes more symmetrical, while there is, perhaps, little risk of lessening the milking qualities of the offspring, if sufficient regard is paid to the selection of the individual animals to breed from. It is thought by some that in the breeding of animals it is the male which gives the external form, or the bony and muscular system of the young, while the female imparts the respiratory organs, the circulation of the blood, the organs of secretion, and the like. If this principle be true, it follows that the milking qualities come chiefly from the mother, and that the bull cannot materially alter the conditions which determine the transmission of these qualities, especially when they are as strongly marked as they are in this breed. Until, however, certain mooted questions connected with breeding are definitively settled, it is the safest plan, in breeding for the dairy, to adhere to the rule of selecting only animals whose progenitors on both sides have been distinguished for their milking qualities.