53 



SOUTH DEVON CATTLE. 



The Royal Show at Bristol next year should afford breeders of 

 South Devon cattle an opportunity which has not come their 

 way for many years of making a striking display comparatively 

 near home of their magnificent cattle, in which they have 

 solved the problem of how to produce the real dual puipose 

 beast, the animal which carries a wealth of flesh for the butcher, 

 of the finest quality, without superfluous fat, which matures 

 rapidly, and at the same time has all the attributes that the 

 dairy farmer requires. The breed has always been noted for 

 its extraordinary dairy properties, and breeders long ago recog- 

 nised that if they could combine beef and milk in the same 

 animal they would have magnificent rentpayers, and that they 

 could offer to the whole world what its agriculturists most 

 desire. Cows of the best type and character have been selected 

 and the use of bulls of good calibre and constitution from heavy 

 milking dams has enabled the ideal to be attained. 



At no period of their history have the South Devons stood 

 higher in the public estimation than to-day. Their position 

 among established breeds has been won by strenuous effort. 

 The establishment of the Herd Book Society was the first 

 forward step, and the careful work done in the selection of 

 animals for I'egistration, the efforts to produce fixed type, 

 character, and general uniformity in the past twenty years 

 have tended to establish a breed which stands, if not unrivalled, 

 at least unexcelled, for dual purpose in the United Kingdom. 

 It has come slowly, but surely, to the front ; its recognition 

 has been tardy ; it has had no aristocratic backing ; its breeders 

 are chiefly — almost mainly — tenant farmers, and it has had to 

 overcome many prejudices and to compel attention by the 

 display in the show ring, and in the national trials, of its 

 consistent merit. 



The South Dev^on is no "new" animal. The breed is of a 

 hardy type, the robust constitution being an invaluable legacy 

 from the past when this class of cattle drew the plough on their 

 native soil. They grow with rapidity to an enormous size, and 

 in spite of their rapid development it is not obtained by the 

 sacrifice in any degree of milk producing capabilities, in which 



