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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



with accessions from other springs, its progress is 

 often stayed; it forms wet swamps, or feeds ponds 

 or lakes without outlets. We have instances of 

 this in various places in England. In foreign 

 lands, however, in warmer and drier climates than 

 our own, we Iiave instances on a grand scale, where 

 the evaporation from the surface of an inland sea 

 or lake is sufficient to halance the amount of all 

 the streams which flow into it. The Dead Sea, 

 for instance, receives all the waters of the river 

 Jordan ; the Ural Lake in Asia, does the same 

 with two or three considerable rivers. The Caspian 

 provides for all the waters of the Volga. The Lake 

 of Tule, in the Californian Valley, absorbs the 

 river St. Joacquim. Now, as none of these great 

 inland waters have any outlet, it follows that the 

 evaporation from their surface exactly equals the 



weight of water poured into them. If the rivers in 

 their course traverse a long line of dry country 

 without receiving any tributary streams, there the 

 extent of the evaporation and absorption by its 

 banks either materially diminishes the size of the 

 stream — as in the case of the Euphrates, in its course 

 from the mountains of Armenia, through the river- 

 less plains of Arabia— or the stream is at last entirely 

 exhausted or lost in a swamp, as is the supposed 

 case with one or two of the African rivers. With 

 these evaporations, again recommences that eter- 

 nal circle of which we have been tracing the course ; 

 again the water rises in vapour, is again wafted by 

 the winds, to be deposited, in dew or rain, over 

 those thirsty soils, which but for this beneficent 

 arrangement of its Creator would ever be hope- 

 lessly barren. 



THE HERDS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Chapter XXV. 



THE BARTON HERD. 



We hardly know how it is that we have roamed, either 

 on business or pleasure, into nearly every county in 

 England except Devo.nshire. We had put our head 

 straight for it often enough down the Great Western 

 Line ; but, like the man with " the wilful legs," who 

 never could pass a tavern, we had either turned off at 

 a tangent to the Tubney kennels, at Didcot, or Mr. 

 Tom Parr's at Farringdon, or cantered across the 

 country from Shrivenham to have a day's coursing at 

 Ashdown, or plunged boldly among Mr. Stratton and 

 his three hundred from Swindon, till the land of apple- 

 orchards, shady lanes, junkets, and syllabubs became a 

 complete mirage. However, " Paddington io Exeter" 

 was printed legibly enough on our night-train ticket at 

 last, and we fairly realized in the coffee-room next 

 morning, that we were well out of the Booth, Bates, 

 and Towneley jurisdiction, and about to do suit 

 and service to the Red and All Red dynasty. Those 

 who remember Douglas Jerrold's string of sparkling 

 conceits to a foaming ale cup, or saw Exeter Hall rise 

 to a man, when Temperance Gough held aloft, and 

 apostrophised a tumbler of cold water, can imagine, if 

 they like, what those great word painters would have 

 said or written subsequently, if they had come down in 

 their slippsrs, and found, for the first time in their lives, 

 a dish of clotted cream flanking their eggs and muffin. 



The patent of its peerage among creams dates back, 

 it is averred, to the early part of the last century, but 

 the " Herd Book" does not take us back much further 

 than '27. Devon breeders could have given its editor 

 much more information from their private notes, but as 

 there was no prize system in existence before that, the 

 interest of the public in the matter would hardly have 

 been commensurate. Forester (46) and his grandsire 

 (bred by Mr. Tanner Davy) are the first bulls of note 

 which it records. The former, which was bred by Mr, 

 James Quartly, received his name for his labours on The 



Forest, where Mr. Knight used him with such complete 

 success, that his breeder bought him back, and after a 

 stay at Molland, he was resold to Mr. J. Reynolds, of 

 Thorverton. Thirty years before that, the herds of 

 Quartly, Davy, Moggridge, and the Halses had 

 flourished in and about Molland, but good bulls could 

 be got for £^15, and a crown was the highest ser- 

 vice fee. Their fealty was put to a sore test during 

 the war prices, as a cow could fetch her ,£'25 as well 

 as a bullock, and hence it was only a few of the very 

 staunchest North Devonians who could not be tempted 

 to sell their females, or who dared to go into the mar- 

 ket and outbid the butchers. The kernel of the breed 

 was preserved, but, as might have been expected, well 

 bred Devons are not nearly so plentiful as they then 

 were. It may be that we all dwell too fondly on the 

 past, and forget that the eye was younger and more im- 

 pressablc ; but we constantly hear Mr. Turner's opinion 

 confirmed, that the lot of twenty cows of the late Mr. 

 Michael Thome's, which went to North Molton Fair 

 about that time, were the best that Devonshire ever 

 pitched for sale. This patriarch found few rivals as a 

 feeder, and he was wont to reckon it as his proudest 

 achievement, that one of his four-year-old steers killed 

 to 20 score a quarter. 



Some years before this, the Devons had gained a new 

 settlement on the Eastern seaboard, among the 

 turnips and partridges of Norfolk. That wide, full 

 loin, neat fore-quarter, juicy steak cut, small bone, 

 and absence of coarse beef, along with that winding 

 horn, and bright deer-like eye, had not failed to strike 

 the late Earl of Leicester, when he visited Davy's, 

 Quartly 's, and Merson's herds in his "searches after 

 truth," and beef. It was also through his present of 

 six heifers, and a bull to Mr. Patterson of Maryland, 

 that in 1817, they first found their way to the New 

 World, where yokes of them form such a pleasant fea- 



