Old Ford Farm, Bideford
Devonshire is eminently an agricultural county, having few industrial or manufacturing centres, and still fewer mining interests, although in the past it has been famous for weaving, and for tin and copper mining. There is in the county a great variety of soil, from almost barren sand to the rich alluvial earth of the many river valleys, such as the vales of Honiton and Exeter, for example, and that not very clearly defined tract of country called the South Hams, lying south of Dartmoor, including the district between the Tamar and the Teign, and containing some of the most fertile land in England. The climate, as has been shown, is mild and equable, but the rainfall is heavy; and the farms of Devonshire, like those in the adjacent counties, are mainly devoted to pasturage, although fruit-growing is an important industry. Red Devon cattle are well known and highly valued; and the sturdy little ponies of Exmoor and Dartmoor have been famous since Saxon times.
Exmoor Ponies
According to the latest returns of the Ordnance Survey, Devonshire contains, exclusive of water, more than a million and a half (1,667,154) acres, of which nearly a million and a quarter (1,211,648) are under cultivation, including rather more than 500,000 acres of arable land, and nearly 700,000 acres of permanent grass. The latter, which as will be seen is more than half the cultivated area, is more than twice that in Dorset or Cornwall, rather more than that in Somerset, and is only exceeded in the much larger county of Yorkshire. It may be added that the arable land was 11,000 acres less and the permanent grass 11,000 acres more in 1908 than in 1907.
