EARLY AUTHORITIES ON THEIR HISTORY 125 



small and high-set tail, thin skin, -/silky handling, feeding 

 early, maturing sooner than most other breeds ; and by 

 hardiness, quick movement, and the form of the shoulders, 

 well qualified for use as working animals." 



In the same year Robert Fraser, in his General View of 

 Devon, remarks that the North Devon breed is remarkably 

 fine, and perhaps the best in the Kingdom, many people 

 preferring it to the famous Longhorns of Bakewell. 

 William Marshall, two years later, writes : 

 " There are numberless individuals of the Devonshire 

 breed so perfectly resembling the breed of Herefordshire, 

 in frame, colour, and horn, as not to be distinguishable from 

 that celebrated breed, except in the greater cleanness of 

 the head and fore quarters, and in the inferiority of size. 

 The cattle of Devonshire resemble those of Sussex, except 

 in their greater symmetry of frame, and their being much 

 cleaner in the fore-end, and everywhere freer from offal, than 

 the ordinary breed of Sussex." The breed "varies very 

 much in different districts of the country, both in size and 

 mould. North Devonshire takes the lead in both these 

 particulars, and its breed is, in both, nearly what cattle 

 ought to be. ... They are beyond all comparison the best 

 workers I have anywhere seen." 



Arthur Young- in 1796 gives the most comprehensive 

 account of the breed, from information derived from Lord 

 Somerville. He thus, according to Sinclair, locates their 

 home in North Devon, beginning at Barnstaple : 



" The length of the district to the western extremity, the 

 mouth of the Barnstaple River, is 45 miles ; the breadth from 

 Tiverton to Minehead, 22 miles. Outside this district east- 

 ward was a ' mixture of Gloucester, Welsh, Upper Somerset, 

 etc. ... a varied dairy sample.' Beyond the western 

 extremity, the Devon breed was found, but inclined to the 

 Cornish type. ... To the south were the South Hams 

 Cattle, described as 'coarse, with a good deal of white and 

 brown, and black and white mixtures, of uncertain proper- 

 ties ' ; and to the north the sea. ... At Bampton, in North 

 Devon, and at Wiveliscombe, in Somersetshire, both low- 

 lying places in a comparatively warm climate, the breed was 

 in great perfection. . . . The north-west of Devon and the 

 hill part of Somerset produced stock to the utmost of their 

 capacities to supply the demand in the vales of Taunton 

 and Exeter, and ' a great foreign demand,' which had been 

 added by the merit of the breed. . . . Handsomer bulls are 



