Heporl on the Cattle Exhibited at Windsor. G23 
respectively, between the fii'st and the ninth decade of the 
nineteenth century. 
Youatt {Cattle : Breeds^ Management and Diseases), in his 
chapter on, the Middle-horns, declares that " the truth of the 
matter is that Devonshire farmers were, until nearly the close 
of the last century, not at all conscious that they possessed 
anything at all superior to other breeds ; but, like agriculturists 
everywhere else, they bought and bred without care or selec- 
tion." He adds (writing about forty-five years ago) : " It is 
only within the last fifty or sixty years that any systematic 
efforts have been made to improve the breeds of cattle in any 
part of the kingdom.'' The Devonshire men, he continues, 
were not the first to stir, nor the most zealous when they were 
roused to exertion, but " they are indebted to the nature of their 
soil and climate for the beautiful specimens which they possess 
of the native breed of our island, and they have retained this 
breed almost in spite of themselves." 
Colonel Davy, however, the original editor and proprietor of 
the Devon Herd-book, in his short history of the liise and Fro- 
gress of the Devon Breed of Cattle, contributed as a prize essay 
to the Society's Journal (Vol. V. s.s. [1869] p. 107) twenty years 
ago, has recorded that " the Davy family have bred choice 
Devons for the last 150 years," but he refers to the drafts of 
many of the best (because they generally happened to be the 
fattest) animals from many of the breeding herds for slaughter, 
in consequence of the extremely high prices offered during the 
wars with America and France, and mentions also as a cause of 
decline the selections made by purchasers in other counties. A 
few, however, of the more spirited men of North Devon deter- 
mined that the county should not lose all its best stock, and 
therefore refused all temptations to sell their choicest animals. 
Foremost of that little band of breeders who interposed to stop 
the drain and arrest the decline of the Devon was Mr. Francis 
Quartly, of Great Champson, in Molland, a district which 
touches West Somerset. In Mr. (now Sir Thomas) Dyke 
Acland's Beport on the Farming of Somerset (Journal, Vol. ^I. 
[1850] page G80), a sketch of Mr. Quartly's practice is intro- 
duced in recognition of the good which eventually extended from 
his herd into the adjoining county. About the close of the last 
century " the principal North Devon yeomen were all breeders, 
and every week you might see in the Molton mai'kets animals 
that would now be called choice. There were no cattle-shows 
in those days, and therefore the relative value of animals was 
not so easily tested." Then follows a reference to the war 
prices, and the temptation, to most breeders irresistible, to sell 
