332 
Management of Devon Cattld. 
May 1, or in April in a forward spring. The worst are sold 
off during summer, the better remaining at grass until October, 
when they are taken in and fed for Christmas. The best then 
go to Dunster Show, where Mr. Risdon has exhibited very suc- 
cessfully, and the Breed Cup and other prizes have been won at 
Islington by animals purchased from him, notably one or two 
of the Devon steers exhibited by Her Majesty the Queen. 
Mrs. Merson, of Bickham, Dunster, having a rather more 
exposed situation, cannot keep the young animals out quite as 
Mr. George Risdon, her neighbour, does, but they have open 
yards under sheds, and are very hardily reared. The steers, 
grazed off at three years old, average fully 41 and sometimes up 
to 45 score. 
Mr. Robert Case, of Withycombe, West Somerset, followed 
his father, who took the farm more than sixty-five years ago. 
He remembers when the hand-rearing of calves was the common 
practice of the district, “ but now that people have grown so 
lazy,” he says, “ they suckle them.” His cows, however, gener- 
ally excepting heifers, have about half the milk taken from them 
before the calves are let out to suck. When the calves take to 
corn (bruised oats), barley meal, &c., they are weaned. After 
the first summer’s grass, when taken in at nights, they are not 
allowed to go out on frosty mornings, but have hay under cover, 
going out later in the day if the weather be fine. Later, they 
stay in all day, living on hay alone until that becomes scarce, 
then on pulped mangel and straw chaff. But Mr. Case does 
not like chaff for young stock unless it be sweetened with barley 
meal or an equivalent. His grass-fed steers, finished without 
extra food, and sold off to the butcher when under three years 
old, make a money average of about 26?. 
On the Brendon Hills, Somersetshire, at the height of 700 
to 1,000 feet above the sea, Mr. William Oatway, of Leigh 
Barton, rears annually more than twenty pure Devons of the 
hardy, robust, active sort, yet good substantial animals. After 
they are taken under cover at nights, in November, they con- 
tinue to go out by day. The management is the same as on 
some of the low-lying farms in the district between the Brendon 
Hills and the coast, •plus the special care needed on so bleak a 
height, with liability to sudden storms from the sea. 
On the same side of the Brendon range is Stamborougli, the 
farm occupied by Mr. John Howse, a successful exhibitor, and it 
is needless to say that his prize-winners do not get their comely 
looks by lying out upon the heights. After the show season, how- 
ever, they are all turned out to grass, excepting occasionally one 
kept in to go on with the training for show. The yearly yield 
i 
