In preparing the following article, we have consulted the principal Agricultural Reports and Journals of this country, and Youatt, and Martin, and Low's histories of British Cattle; we are also indebted to many of our importers and breeders, who have furnished statements in regard to their respective herds. That the Devons are an ancient race of cattle, there can be no doubt. There is no race in England that can claim such undisputed antiquity. They bear all the characteristic marks of resemblance of the ancient races of the south of England and Wales; even the color, red, is traced in the Devon, Sussex and Hereford.
The distinction between a "breed" and "race," Goodale defines as follows: "By breeds are understood such varieties as were originally produced by a cross or mixture, and subsequently established by selecting for breeding purposes only the best specimens, and rejecting all others. In process of time deviations become less frequent, and greater uniformity is secured, and this is in proportion to the time which elapses and the skill employed in selecting. Races are varieties moulded to their peculiar type by natural causes, with no interference of man, and no intermixture of other varieties; that have continued substantially the same, for a period beyond which the memory and knowledge of man does not reach. Such are the North Devon Cattle."
There seems to have been three distinct races of these ancient cattle: the Long Horns, the Middle Horns, and Hornless, or Polled Cattle. The Middle Horns represented the cattle of the region of Devonshire. These races of cattle were bred by the Ancient Celtic inhabitants, and constituted their chief subsistence. Youatt says: "the native inhabitants were proud of their country, and prouder of their cattle, their choicest possession." When their country was invaded by their enemies, they fled to the mountains for safety and protection, and took with them their cattle upon which to subsist, and thus were preserved both themselves and their cattle, so that the races of cattle in these districts have been the same from time immemorial. In a few instances the wild forest cattle have been kept distinct, in a wild state, to this day; as in the parks of Chillingham and Chartley; and are said to be similar to those that existed in the tenth century; and also bear a strong resemblance to the present domestic breeds of that region. The cattle in these parks are white, with red ears.
Color.
Black or white were the principal colors, though where these were found the memory of the red prevails. "It seems the people had a superstitious reverence attached to it, (in Scotland and Wales), in the tradition of the country; the milk of the red cow was considered a remedy for every disease, and a preservative from every evil." The breeders of the improved Devons adhere scrupulously to the deep red color of the hair, and reject individuals that have a tendency to produce white. And it seems that in this way, if no other, the color of the Devons has been established and perpetuated. The deep red color of the pure bred Devon is implanted so strongly, that there is no race in which an admixture of foreign blood is so easily traced; nor is there a race that has remained so free from foreign intermixture. Their color is generally stamped on the progeny, in a cross with any other breed.
English Improved Devons.
The improvement of these ancient races of cattle, which has resulted in the present perfected breed, was commenced about one hundred and fifty years ago. John Tanner Davy, of Rose Ash, England, the Editor of the English Devon Herd Book, inherited the herd of his father, who had carefully bred the Devons for fifty years. Mr. Francis Quartly, whose engraving adorns the first volume of Davy's Devon Herd Book, endeavored by a long course of selection, and by an intimate knowledge of the principles of breeding, to combine the various elements in the different herds, so as to attain the great object of the Devon breeder, the lessening of the parts of the animal frame least useful to man, as the bone and offal, and at the same time the increase of such other parts, as fat and flesh, that furnish food, and to do this at the earliest possible age, and with the least consumption of food. That Mr. Quartly succeeded in fully establishing these characteristics of the breed, we need no better evidence than that nine-tenths of the pedigrees of the present herds in Davy's Herd Book, go directly back to the old Quartly stock; twenty-seven out of twenty-nine of the prize bulls mentioned in that work are descendants from the bull Forester, (46): and twenty-nine out of thirty-four prize cows mentioned there, descended from the cow Curly, (92). Hundred Guinea (56), another noted ancestor of the Quartly tribe, stands in the pedigrees of this breed, as Hubback among the short horns. Among others who have done much to improve their herds, and bring the breed to its present state of perfection, may be mentioned, the Earl of Leicester, James Davy, Mr. Richard Merson, James and John Quartly who also inherited the herds of their fathers, and continued their well begun improvement. Mr. George Turner, of Barton, whose herd was made up from the other breeders, Mr. Samuel Farthing, of Somerset, Mr. John Halse, of Moland, Mr. Wm. Hole, of Somerset, Mr. T. B. Morle, of Cummington, Mr. George Shapland, of Oakford, and Mr. John Ayre Thomas, of Rose Ash, Devon, with many others have caught the spirit of improvement, and continued to progress towards perfection.
Qualities.
Mr. Bloomfield, the manager of the late Earl of Leicester's estate, at Holkam Hall, Norfolk, England, has, by careful attention, greatly improved the size and quality of the Devons, and increased their milking properties, so that he obtained a prize for having produced an average annual yield of 200 pounds of butter per cow, in a dairy of twenty cows, or equal to four pounds per week the year round; and he offered to milk forty pure Devons from his own herd against an equal number of cows in any one herd of any breed found in England, without finding a competitor. At the Smithfield show of fat cattle, held at the London market place, in 1858, the gold medal for the best ox or steer of any breed in the show yard was awarded to a Devon, bred and owned by the Earl of Leicester. They are highly esteemed in the Smithfield market, not only for the excellence of the meat, but because its size is more agreeable on most tables than the huge joints of some other breeds. In weight they are much excelled, but the opinion of the Devon breeder is, that more meat can be made from them, with a given amount of food, than from any other breed. The quality of the Devon beef is unsurpassed, even rivalling the little black West Highland ox, in the estimation of the London west-end butcher, whose fastidious customers oblige him to kill none but beef of the finest quality and flavor. In the New York market the "red oxen of Connecticut" most generally bring the highest price, they being Devon Grades. The Devons have the preference of all other breeds for the yoke, being strong, active, and of great endurance; and are remarkable for docility and good temper.
The cattle in many sections of New England resemble the Devons in many respects, and the fact that most of the early settlers were from the south of England, renders it quite probable that they selected their cattle from that region. The first account that we have of the importation of cattle into New England was in the ship Charity, in the spring of 1623, in the care of Mr Winslow, then agent of the colony of Plymouth. Their descendants show by their color that they were Devons, or Devon grades.