128 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



but are believed capable of furnishing more service and more and 

 better beef upon the average of Maine farms than any other breed. 



Farmers, whose ideas upon stock have been formed wholly from 

 their experience with Short-horns and their grades, have often been 

 surprised at witnessing the facility with which Devons sustain 

 themselves upon scanty pasturage, and not a few when first criti- 

 cally examining well bred specimens, sympathize with the feeling 

 which prompted the remark made to the reporter of the great Eng- 

 lish Exhibition at Chester, after examining with him fine specimens 

 of the Devons — " I am delighted ; I find we Short-horn men have 

 yet much to learn of the true formation of animals ; their beautiful 

 contour and extreme quality of flesh surprise me." 



The IIerefords are an ancient and well established breed, and are 

 probably entitled to be called a race. Little is known with cer- 

 tainty of their origin beyond the fact that for many generations 

 they can be traced as the peculiar breed of the county whence they 

 derive their name. Youatt says that " Mr. Culley, although an 

 excellent judge of cattle, formed a very erroneous opinion of the 

 Herefords when he pronounced them to be nothing but a mixture 

 of the Welsh with a bastard race of Long Horns. They are evi- 

 dently an aboriginal breed, and descended from the same stock as 

 the Devon. If it were not for the white face and somewhat larger 

 head and thicker neck it would not at all times be easy to distin- 

 guish between a heavy Devon and a light Hereford. " 



Mr. Gisborne says " The Hereford brings good evidence that he 

 is the British representative of a widely diffused and ancient race. 

 The most uniform drove of oxen which we ever saw, consisted of 

 five hundred from the Ukraine. They had white faces, upward 

 horns and tawny bodies. Placed in Hereford, Leicester or North- 

 ampton markets, they would have puzzled the graziers as to the 

 laud of their nativity ; but no one would have hesitated to pro- 

 nounce that they were rough Herefords." 



Mr. Rowlandson, in his prize report on the farming of Hereford- 

 shire, says "The Herefords, or as they have sometimes been 

 termed, the middle horned cattle have ever been esteemed a most 

 valuable lirced, and when housed from the inclemency of the 

 weather, probably put on more moat and fat in proportion to the 

 food consumed, than any other variety. They are not so hardy as 

 the Nortli Devon cattle, to whicli they bear a general resemblance ; 

 they however are larger than the Devons, especially the males. 

 Ou the other hand, the Herefords are larger boned, to compensate 



