A Short History of English Agriculture

Herefordshire cattle have long been famous as one of the finest breeds in the world. Marshall, writing in 1788, does not hesitate to say, 'The Herefordshire breed of cattle, taking it all in all, may without risque be deemed the first breed of cattle in the land.' Their origin has been accounted for in various ways. Some say they were originally brown or reddish-brown from Normandy or Devon, others that they came from Wales, while it is recorded that Lord Scudamore in the latter half of the seventeenth century introduced red cows with white faces from Flanders. However, they do not emerge from obscurity until about the middle of the eighteenth century, when Messrs. Tomkins, Weyman, Yeomans, Hewer, and Tully devoted their energies to establishing a county breed. There were four varieties of Herefords, which have now practically merged into the red with white face, mane, and throat: the mottle face, with red marks intermixed with the parts usually white; the dark greys; light greys; and the red with the white face. The rivalry between the breeders of the white and the mottle faces almost caused the failure of the Herd-Book commenced in 1845 by Mr. Eyton. The mottle-faced party seems to have been then the most influential, but the dark and light grey varieties also had strong adherents. In 1857 Mr. Duckham took over the management of the Herd-Book, and to his exertions the breed owes a deep debt of gratitude. One of the greatest supporters of the Herefordshire breed was Mr. Westcar of Creslow, who, starting in 1779, attended Hereford October Fair for forty years, and when the Smithfield Show commenced in 1799 won innumerable first prizes there with Herefordshire cattle. Between 1799 and 1811 twenty of his Herefordshire prize oxen averaged £106 6s. each, and at the sale of Mr. Ben Tomkins's herd after his death in 1819 twenty-eight breeding animals averaged £152, one cow fetching £262 15s. Herefords are famous for their feeding qualities at grass, and good stores are scarce, the best being fattened on their native pastures. They are not only almost the only breed in their own county, but few English counties south of Shropshire are without them; they have done well in Ireland, and in Canada, the United States, South America, and Australia have attained great success. They are not so well qualified for crossing as Shorthorns, but have blended well with that breed, and produced good crosses with Ayrshires and Jerseys, but not with Devons. It has been said that they are not a favourite sort with London butchers, as they require time to ripen, which does not suit a hurrying age. Hence they probably flourished best under the old school of graziers, who sometimes kept them to six or seven years old. At all events they are a very fine breed for beef purposes, their meat being particularly tender, juicy, and fine-grained. They are seldom kept for dairy purposes, being poor milkers; consequently the calf is nearly always allowed to run with the dam, which accounts for the fact that one seldom sees pure-bred Herefords that are not well grown. The highest price paid for a Hereford was 4,000 guineas for Lord Wilton in 1884.

The cattle of North Devon can be traced as the peculiar breed of the county from which they take their name from the earliest records. Bradley mentioned the red cattle of Somerset in 1726, and no doubt there were many in Devonshire.[745] William Marshall states (1805), and he is supported by subsequent writers, that 'they are of the middle horn class', and in his time so nearly resembled the Herefordshire breed in frame, colour, and horn, as not to be distinguishable from them, except in the greater cleanness of the head and fore-quarters, and their smaller size. Yet they could not have had the white faces and throats of the Herefords, as they have always been famous for their uniformity in colour—a fine dark red.[746] He also compares them to the cattle of Sussex and the native cattle of Norfolk.[747] The Devons then differed very much in different parts of the county; those of North Devon taking the lead, being 'nearly what cattle ought to be'. They were, considered as draught animals, the best workers anywhere beyond all comparison, though rather small, for which deficiency they made up in exertion and agility. As dairy cattle they were not very good, since rearing for the east country graziers had long been the main object of Devon cattle farmers, but as grazing cattle they were excellent.

This danger was clearly perceived by Francis Quartly of Molland, who set to work to remedy it by systematically buying the choicest cows he could procure. As the reputation and perhaps continuance of the Devon breed is due to him more than to any other man, his account of his own efforts on behalf of it is specially valuable.[748] At the end of the eighteenth century the principal North Devon yeomen were all breeders, and every week you might see in the Molton Market, their natural locality, animals that would now be called choice. There were few cattle shows in those days, and therefore the relative value of animals was not so easily tested. The war prices tempted many farmers to sell their best bulls and cows out of the district, so that good animals were becoming scarce, and the breed generally going back. Mr. Quartly therefore for years bought all the best animals he could find with rare skill and judgement, and continued to improve his stock till he brought it to perfection. About the year 1834 cattle shows began at Exeter, and for the first year or two Mr. Quartly did not compete; then he allowed his nephews to enter in all the classes, and they brought home all the prizes. This lead they kept, and at the Royal Show at Exeter in 1850 their stock obtained nine out of the ten prizes for Devons. The Devon Herd-Book was first published in 1851 by Captain T.T. Davy, and a writer in 1858 says that of twenty-nine prize bulls in the first three volumes twenty-seven were descended from the Quartly bull Forester, and of thirty-four prize cows twenty-nine from the cow Curly, also of their stock.

In 1829 Moore says, 'The young heifers of North Devon, with their taper legs, the exact symmetry of their form, and their clear coats of dark red, are pictures of elegance.' Their superiority for grazing and draught was proved by the high prices demanded for them, but they were not equally esteemed as dairy animals,[749] though of late years this reproach has been removed. The ploughing of two acres of fallow land was the common work of four oxen, which, when fattened at five years old, would reach eleven score a quarter.

Since the publication of the Herd-Book, Devons have spread all over the world, to Mexico, Jamaica, Canada, Australia, France, and United States, and the fact that in their original home they have been largely kept by tenant farmers proves them a good rent-paying breed. Yet it cannot be pretended that away from their native country they are as much valued as the Shorthorn and Hereford.

The South Hams breed of South Devon is a distinct variety, though it is believed to be descended from the 'Rubies'[750] and apparently has at some time been crossed with the Guernsey; they are good milkers and attain a great size, but the quality of the meat is decidedly inferior to that of North Devon.

From the earliest times the real Devon colour has been red, varying from a dark to a lighter or almost chestnut shade; half a century ago the lighter ones were more numerous than at present, and they are often of richer quality though less hardy than the dark ones.

Longhorns,[751] a generation ago nearly extinct, once the favourite cattle of the midlands and portions of the north, are descended from a breed long established in the Craven district of Yorkshire. 'The true Lancashire,' said Young in 1770, 'were Longhorns, and in Derbyshire were a bastard sort of Lancashires.'[752] It was this breed that Bakewell improved, and of late years great efforts, chiefly in Warwickshire and Leicestershire, have been made to revive it.

The Red Polled, or Norfolk Polled, is the only hornless breed of English cattle, and they are good milkers and fatteners.

The Lincoln Red is a small red variety of the Shorthorn.

Many of the Welsh breeds have spread into the adjacent parts of England, and may be classified as North and South Welsh, or Angleseys and Castle Martins; black in colour, and generally with long horns.

The Scottish cattle—the Aberdeen Angus, the Galloways, the Highland breed, and the Ayrshires—are also seen in England, but not so often as the Jerseys and Guernseys from the Channel Islands, while the small Dexters and Kerrys from Ireland are favourites with some English farmers.

The sheep of the British Isles may be divided into three main classes:—

1. Longwools, containing Leicesters, Border Leicester's, Cotswolds, Lincolns, Kentish, Devon Longwool, South Devon, Wensleydale, and Roscommon.

2. Shortwools: the Oxford Downs, Southdowns, Shropshires, Hampshire Downs, Suffolks, Ryelands, Somerset and Dorset Horned, and Clun Forest.

The Wensleydales are descendants of the old Teeswater breed, itself a variety of the old Leicester and improved by the new Leicesters of Culley.

The Shropshire sheep is a descendant of the original Longmynd or old Shropshire sheep, which began to be crossed by the Southdown at the commencement of the nineteenth century.[753] They were recognized as a distinct breed in 1853, and since then have become one of the most valued breeds, combining the symmetry and quality of the Southdown with the weight of the Cotswold and the fattening tendency of the Leicester, with a hardier constitution.

The Hampshire Down is another instance of the widespread influence of the Southdown, being the result of crossing that breed with the old Wiltshire sheep, which had long curling horns, and the Berkshire Knott. They are heavier than the Shropshire, and are perhaps more distinguished for early maturity than any other breed.

The Suffolk is derived from the old horned Norfolk ewe mated with the Southdown, and was first granted its name in 1859.

The Ryeland is a small, hornless, white-faced breed which has been in Herefordshire for centuries, but of late years has dwindled in numbers before the advent of the Shropshire.

APPENDIX I

AVERAGE PRICES FROM 1259 TO 1700[754]

APPENDIX II

The above figures are taken from McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary, 1847, p. 438, and agree roughly with those given by McPherson, Annals of Commerce, iii. 674, and iv. 216 and 532.

With regard to the exports and imports of all kinds of corn, large quantities were exported in the first half of the eighteenth century. In 1733, 800,000 quarters were sent to France, Portugal, Spain, and Italy,[757] and exports reached their maximum in 1750 with 1,667,778 quarters, but by 1760 had decreased to 600,000, and after that fell considerably; in 1771, for instance, the first year of the corn register, they only amounted to 81,665 quarters, whereas imports were 203,122. The figures of the imports were swollen by the large quantities of oats which came into England at this time. The following years are typical of the fluctuations in the trade:—

the last year when exports of all kinds of corn exceeded imports.[758]

To sum up, according to these figures, England's exports of wheat regularly exceeded her imports from 1697 until 1757, with the exception of the years 1728-9; then they fluctuated till 1789, the last year in which exports of wheat exceeded imports, and as the same year is the last time when our exports of all kinds of corn exceeded our imports, England at that date ceased to be an exporting country.[759]

APPENDIX III