The first importation of improved North Devons into this country was in 1817. Mr. Coke, then Earl of Leicester, presented to Mr. Robert Patterson, of Baltimore, Md., six heifers and one bull, Taurus (320). Taurus was bred by Mr. Denny, a tenant of Mr. Coke, then Earl of Leicester, who paid fifty guineas for him. His dam, in 1820, made thirteen pounds of butter per week. Three of these heifers Mr. Patterson gave to his father-in-law, Mr. Richard Caton, the other three he gave to his father, Mr. William Patterson; they were all bred to Taurus. In 1835, Mr. George Patterson came in possession of the herd of his father, Mr. William Patterson, and, in 1836, imported the bull Anchises (140), for a cross, from one of the best dairies in Devonshire; he afterward imported Eclipse (191); in 1846, Herod (214), and in 1852, Norfolk (266). By comparing the records the fact is apparent, that the pedigree of animals dates further back in this country than in England. Thus the bull Taurus (320), was calved in 1816, and imported in 1817, when a yearling, by Mr. Robert Patterson, of Md.; Holkham (215), calved 1819; the cow Fancy (709), calved 1818, and Strawberry 1st (1062), calved 1819. While the oldest record of English pedigrees is the bull Forester (46), calved in 1827, and Hundred Guineas (56), calved in 1837; the cows Flower (187), calved in 1820, Countess (77), in 1828, Curly (92), and Pretty Maid (364), were calved in 1830. Messrs. S. & L. Hurlbut, of Winchester, Conn., commenced their herd in 1819, from a pair procured of Mr. Patterson, Holkham (115), and Fancy (709), with additions from the same source every few years. In 1850 they imported Albert (2), whose progeny has stood high in the country, and received more premiums than the progeny of any other bull lately imported. Beauty (523), bred by Mr. Hurlbut, in 1836, from Fancy (709), and Exchange (197), produced sixteen pounds of butter per week, in June, 1850. Mr. Coleman, says, in his European Agriculture, "the most productive cow in butter, which I have found, was a North Devon, which, for several weeks in succession, without extra feed, produced twenty-one pounds of butter per week. The character of the owner places the fact beyond a doubt."