1850. 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



DEVON CATTLE. 



Thk annexed engraving is a por- 

 trait of the Devon Bull Holkham, 



bred by A. Bronson, Esq., of 



Oneida connty, N. Y., and now 



owned by L. Crane, of Marshall, 



N. Y. He is a descendant of the 



Coke Devon Bnll Holkham, from 



his resemblance to which he takes 



his name. He received the first 



premium of the Oneida County 



Agricultural Society when a calf, 



also at one year old, and at two 



and three years old. The owner 



gives the following description : 



"Head small; eye large, clear, 



prominent, and encircled with the 

 yellow ring ; muzzle fine ; nos- 

 trils wide, high, open, and encir- 

 cled with white ; horns polished, 

 pointing Ibrward and upward, and 

 of a medium size at the base, and 

 tapering, tipped with black ; ears small, of an orange 

 color within, and bordered with grey hairs. Neck 

 fine and well placed on the shoulders ; chest broad, 

 barrel hooped and deep, and well ribbed home to the 

 hips : back straight from the withers to the setting 

 on of the tail; tail long, slender, and set high, with 

 the white bush ; hide thin and moveable, mellow, 

 well covered with soft and fine hair ; fore-arm large 

 and powerful ; legs short and straight, swelling and 

 full above the knee and fine below it ; hind quarters 

 long and well filled up.'' 



It is generally admitted that this breed of cattle is 

 very easily kept and easy to fatten. Martin, in his 

 (English) work on the Ox, speaking of this point, 

 says : " During the summer the commons and wild 

 moorlands supply a sufficiency of food ; and when in 

 their winter sheds, chopped straw, furze, heath, and 

 other coarse herbage, are sufficient. Hence these 

 cattle are maintained at very little cost, and as they 

 yield a fair quantity of milk, and when put upon 

 moderately good fare, rapidly fatten, they will suit 

 the small farmer, perhaps half-farmer half-fisherman, 

 in a bleak mountain-district, over which the ocean 

 tempest is driven so frequently." 



Allen, in his Domestic Animals, bears evidence 

 of the same fact : " No animal is better suited to our 

 scanty or luxuriant hill pastures than the Devon, and 

 none make a better return for the attention and food 

 received. They ensure a rapid improvement when 

 mixed with other cattle, imparting their color and 

 characteristics in an eminent degree." 



The cows invariably yield milk of great richness, 

 and when appropriately bred, none suipass them for 

 the quantity of butter and cheese it yields. Mr. 

 Bloomfield, the manager of the late Lord Leices- 

 ter's estate at Holkham, has, by careful attention, 

 somewhat increased the size without impairing the 

 beauty of their form, and so successful has he been 

 in developing their milking properties, that his aver- 

 age product of butter from each cow is four pounds 

 per week for the whole year. He has challenged 

 England to milk an equal number of cows of any 

 breed, against forty pure Devons, to be selected out 

 of his own herd, without as yet having found a com- 

 petitor. Although this is not a test of their merits, 

 and by no means decides their superiority, yet it 

 shows the great confidence reposed in them by their 



DEvo.N bull 



owner. The Devon ox, under six years old, has 

 come up to a nett dead weight of 1,593 lbs.; and at 

 three years and seven months, to 1,316 lbs., with 160 

 lbs. ef rough tallow. 



S. WS NOTES FOR THE MONTH. 



The Season and the Crops. — Up to the 2d of 

 .Tune we have not had a single warm day. On the 

 3d of June, for the first time this year, the thermom- 

 eter rose to 85^ in the shade. From that day to this 

 (the 10th,) we have had fine, growing, summer 

 weather, with a few very warm nights. Our cham- 

 paign country is now in the full bloom of rapidly 

 progressive vegetation. Wheat and grass look well : 

 potatoes, which cover a large space this season, ditto ; 

 Indian corn, so long stationary or unseen, now goes 

 ahead with recuperated powers, as though its roots 

 had increased and extended while its leaf was sickly 

 and yellow. In the higher and more hilly regions of 

 New York, vegetation just now is much more homely 

 and backward. But every dog will have his day ; in 

 .Tuly and August, when we are sun struck, dried up, 

 our pastures hardly sufficient to afford a nibble to a 

 flock of sheep, the higher dairy lands will be in all 

 their glory — white clover half-leg high, springs of 

 cold soft vi-ater from the granite hills coursing fields 

 which are tlie Paradise of cows. Then the butter, 

 so hard, compact, and yellow — what a clover perfume 

 and flavor ! — how unlike our soft, greasy compound 

 — call it anything but butter -- the product of churn- 

 ings of long and warm kept, decomposed, many col- 

 ored creams! Then the big cheeses — often two 

 made in one day — too heavy for one woman to turn ; 

 but here the men turn too and help ; and every girl 

 seems to be intuitively aware that to be a graceful, 

 expert milker, is at least to be something better than 

 a mul adroit^ slovenly pretender, in folly and fashion's 

 school I 



WoRDswoRTU, the poet of Rydal. is dead. The 

 factitious title of Poet Laureat ill-befitted either his 

 life or character ; for he was emphatically a rural 

 poet. Eschewing both the classical heroic and Delia 

 Cruscan school of poetry, he gave himself up to the 

 gentle yet profound influences of his own lake and 

 mountain scenery. It is said of him, that the love of 

 nature "was an appetite" which "haunted him like 



