THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



439 



Playful (354), and her sister Countess (595) and daughter 

 Florence were all rare props for the future, and so was 

 Pink (951), a grand cow with a light milking neck, 

 and a winner at Chester to boot. Flower (1355) a 

 combination of three Royal prize bulls, and Pretty 

 Maid (366), and Curly a92) to boot, had been first 

 in the hammer order of merit, at 51 guineas the day 

 before, and gone to Philip Ilalse's homestead. Flower's 

 yearling had attracted Mr. Farquharson's commissioner ; 

 Peace and Plenty (935) and Dairymaid (1264) were on 

 their way to the Norfolk Farm at Windsor; Daisy (1269) 

 and Famous (1319) were bought by Mr. James Quartly ; 

 and the gay short-legged Duke of Chester, with that 

 elegant outline and beautiful touch, which carried the 

 day both at Warwick and Chester, headed, along with 

 a daughter of Dairymaid (the second prize cow on The 

 Roodee), the list of the fashionable departures to Corn- 

 wall, where they are now in Viscount Falmouth's herd. 

 The little village of Molland, which has so long been 

 the Kirkleavington of Devons, is made up of a union of 

 dells. On the chief knoll stands the church, beneath 

 whose shadow, five years ago, " Frank Quartly, aged 

 90," was laid to his rest; while on an adjacent one in Mr. 

 Mogridge's farm, a tall Maypole is reared by the loyal 

 villagers, not marked " Anno Pacts," but still to record 

 their rejoicings when the peace between Russia and the 

 Allies was signed. Lovely, Laura, and Flora of 

 old Curly blood, and Abbess (1141), a daughter of 

 Young Forester were moving red spots on the green 

 sward beneath it; Young Spot (1651), and Profit 

 (993) from the same herd, roamed lazily along the 

 water meadow in the valley, and when Mr. Mogridge 

 had turned out the apple of his eye from her shed, we 

 were not long in making up our minds that a Smithfield 

 medal was looming, and never would believe the con- 

 trary, till we learnt from Mr. James Quartly's official 

 lips at " the private view," that she was only the reserve 

 one. The quaintest part of the village is the north 

 end, with its orchards, its ivy clusters, and its 

 thatched farm-sheds ; and the sombre porches of Great 

 Champson were all alive with guests on that September 

 sale morning. The assembly quite wore the air of a 

 sedate family gathering of men bent on business, and a 

 cheerful day as well. There they sat, like a Devon 

 senate, blew the social cloud, stirred the toddy and their 

 warm ale, watched the herd of struggling ponies and 

 cobs as they were drafted, one by one, from the 

 yard beneath, and discoursed of "bullocks" and tur- 

 nips. Coming after great central sales, where so many 

 idlers draw up, merely seeking what they may devour, 

 and shutting their mouths tight enough when the ring 

 is made, it was quite a pretty pastoral picture, which 

 Frith would have drawn so well, Merson, Risden, 

 Passmore, the Turners, Tanner Davy, Mogridge, and the 

 Halses were among the Devon delegates to the Rump 

 Parliament, which met to pledge each other in the oak 

 wjinscotted chamber, at the head of which old Frank 

 Quartly still lives on Mogford's canvas with Cherry (66) 



at his side, and his hand tenderly laid on her second prize 

 Windsor yearling Playful (354). Warren, and the 

 Holes, were at their posts of duty for Dorset and 

 Somersetshire; Cornwall sent its Anstey, Palmer, 

 Sobey, Parsons, and Tremayne, while Heriot was proxy 

 for its Viscount Falmouth ; Robert Smith had quitted 

 his Exmoor cobs and water meadows for the day, not 

 so much to scan the Dukes of Chester and Earls of 

 Exeter, as the Young Ports and " the descendant of the 

 Queen's Arab ;" and Brebner had passed on from 

 Barton, to speak up thrice more for the interests of 

 Berkshire and Royalty. 



Our route from Great Champson to Flitton lay over 

 rather a wild country at the outset, devoted to ponies, 

 heatherpoults, and notts. Countless shades of green 

 found their types among the furze. The beech hedges 

 seemed hardier as they stole up the higher ground ; and 

 one of them , nearly a mile and a half in length, divided Sir 

 Robert Throckmorton's property from that of the lease- 

 holders. Leaving the moorland, Devon scenery pre- 

 sented itself in a still more beautiful aspect; and as we 

 passed Twitchin Town Wood, with its vast dwarf-oak 

 copses, from which many a straight-necked one has 

 been viewed away, we could well realize the old saying 

 that, like the " Rhine-land" :— 



" Wheie the tailor blows his flute, 

 And the cobbler blows his horn. 

 And the miner blows his bugle, 

 Over mountain-gorge and bourne," 



every man in Devonshire loves the music of hounds. 



What Torr's and Jonas Webb's and Stratton's are 

 among Shorthorns, in point of magnitude, the Flitton 

 herd is to " the red kine." For 150 years the Davy- 

 family have kept up their charter ; and the herd which 

 was handed over 60 strong to Mr. James Davy, at his 

 father's death, has now swelled to nearly double. 

 Upwards of thirty cows come regularly to the pail ; and 

 America and Australia take a draft of several young 

 bulls and heifers each year. Mr. Davy keeps up, like 

 the Messrs. Quartly, a regular bull trade, and generally 

 sells about 13 or 14 yearlings for use either in England 

 or abroad. Flitton can claim about an equal number 

 of male and female prizes, and sent its representa- 

 tives to the Royal show, from its very commence- 

 ment in the Oxford Port Meadow. Oxford (89), by 

 Forester (46), opened the Royal ball there, but he 

 had been sold previously to Mr. Matthew Paul ; and 

 though Nelson (83) had to bow to Mr, John Quartly's 

 Earl of Exeter (38) at Windsor, he did what far sur- 

 passeth show at home, and Mr. Davy still speaks of him 

 as his modern sheet-anchor. His rare loin was a little 

 counterbalanced by somewhat upright shoulders, a 

 point in which Earl of Exeter was especially good ; but 

 Eclipse (190), his Tiverton winner, put all that right ; and 

 Napoleon III. (464), by John Quartly's Earl of Exeter, 

 took first honours at Sahsbury, " against Prince Albert, 

 Turner, and all the lot." A yearling-heifer prize, at 

 Bristol, in 1842, was the first Royal one Mr. Davy won 



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