MODERN FARM LIVE STOCK 341 



exertion and agility. As dairy cattle they were not very 

 good, since rearing for the east country graziers had long 

 been the main object of Devon cattle farmers, but as grazing 

 cattle they were excellent. 



Vancouver, a few years after this, praised their activity 

 in work and their unrivalled aptitude to fatten, but says they 

 were then declining in their general standard of excellence, 

 and in numbers, owing to the great demand for them from 

 other parts of England, where the buyers (Mr. Coke, who had 

 established a valuable herd of them, and others) spared neither 

 pains nor price to obtain those of the highest excellence. 



This danger was clearly perceived by Francis Quartly of 

 Molland, who set to work to remedy it by systematically 

 buying the choicest cows he could procure. As the reputation 

 and perhaps continuance of the Devon breed is due to him 

 more than to any other man, his account of his own efforts 

 on behalf of it is specially valuable. 1 At the end of the 

 eighteenth century the principal North Devon yeomen were 

 all breeders, and every week you might see in the Molton 

 Market, their natural locality, animals that would now be 

 called choice. There were few cattle shows in those days, 

 and therefore the relative value of animals was not so easily 

 tested. The war prices tempted many farmers to sell their 

 best bulls and cows out of the district, so that good animals 

 were becoming scarce, and the breed generally going back. 

 Mr. Quartly therefore for years bought all the best animals 

 he could find with rare skill and judgement, and continued to 

 improve his stock till he brought it to perfection. About 

 the year 1834 cattle shows began at Exeter, and for the 

 first year or two Mr. Quartly did not compete ; then he 

 allowed his nephews to enter in all the classes, and they 

 brought home all the prizes. This lead they kept, and at 

 the Royal Show at Exeter in 1850 their stock obtained nine 



1 R. A. S.E. Journal (ist ser.), xi. 680. See also ibid. xix. 368, and 

 (2nd ser.) v. 107 ; xiv. 663 ; xx. 691. 



