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._