Management of Devon Cattle. 
833 
of calves is from thirteen to fifteen, some of which are suckled, 
some hand-reared. The ordinary breeding females are out by 
day, in by night, during winter, and at night have hay and 
roots ; no cake or corn is given but to the show animals. The 
heifers calve at the age of three years. 
At least two widely different systems are found in Cornwall. 
There is, for example, that adopted in the large and exceedingly 
choice bull-breeding herd of Mr. J. C. Williams, M.P., at 
Caerhays Castle, St. Austell, where the heifer calves are suckled 
for five or six months, the bulls longer, and all that is required 
of the cows as milkers is that they should rear their own calves ; 
and there is that of the Callington district, illustrated by 
Mr. Dingle’s herd at Darley. There the first necessity is to 
have stock either acclimatised by blood and birth, or by their 
antecedents so suited to the place that they are virtually the 
same as native cattle. Once established on the soil, the Devon 
does well there. 
The Dorsetshire system is scarcely so much a system of 
managing Devons as of managing dairy cattle. The Devon has 
been found most profitable as a dairy breed, and thoroughly 
suited to that county, and there it is, occupying the place of 
various breeds and crosses which have been tried. There are, 
indeed, in Dorsetshire, some herds of registered breeding, such 
as Lord Portman’s at Bryanston, the Hon. C. B. Portman’s at 
Childe Okeford, Lord Alington’s at Crichel, and Mr. Thomas 
Chick’s at Stratton. These herds ensure a supply of good sires for 
the tenant-farmers of Dorset ; but the great dairy herds of the 
county are mostly either unregistered or but partly registered, 
and the system of management has been already indicated. 
Many of those herds were seen in the neighbourhoods of Brid- 
port, Dorchester and Cerne Abbas. 
Summary. 
If we take the whole range of these representative herds — 
and many more which might be added would only confirm, not 
alter, the evidence they afford — we can scarcely fail to allow that 
in the Devon breed are very extensive possibilities of adaptation, 
and that those possibilities depend upon intelligence and skill 
in the art of management. 
We have seen the Devon in its most ancient character as a 
breed for beef; we have seen its capabilities in that direction 
evolved and improved by the manager’s skill. In a great variety 
of circumstances it is found to yield, under suitable management, 
so much value for food consumed as to have won and retained 
