of the breed of North Devon cattle, will never fail of being very highly gratified. Great Torrington, and all the large towns in the county, afford fairs for cattle, horses, &c."

Leading Breeders.-P. 328. "At the Right Hon. Earl Fortescue's; Sir Bourchier Wrey's; Ackland's Esq. of High Bray; the Rev. Mr. Quarterly's, of Molland; Mr. Stoneman's, of Woodhouse, near Torrington; Mr. Nickoll's, of Heanton-Court house; Mr. George Burdon's, of Harwood; and at many other gentlemen and respectable farmers in the district of North Devon, the most beautiful specimens of this justly esteemed animal" (the North Devon buil) are always to be met with."

66

Rearing Young Cattle.-P. 326. "The rules generally pursued in breeding and raising this valuable animal, may be considered as follow. Many judicious observations have been made on the preference given to Michaelmas calves to those that drop the latter end of February; notwithstanding the additional expense and care required in nursing them through the winter. The greater number of calves, however, fall between Candlemas and May, and some much later; but among the best breeders, such late calves are not so generally approved of. The usual mode of raising them in this district, is to let the calf suck as much as it will three times a day for the first week; then bring it to the finger, and feed it with warm new milk, in like manner for three weeks longer.

"This is the ordinary treatment for the first month, and the calf is then fed for two months longer, twice a day, with as much warm scalded skimmed milk as it will drink; when, gradually abating its morning and evening meals, at the end of four months the animal is weaned from all milk draughts, and left to itself. Small portions of finely pounded linseed cakes are often used, and recommended to be mixed with the skimmed milk, particularly in the first period of its being given in the place of new milk."

Working Cattle.-P. 330. "It has been already noticed, that the steers of the district are always worked as far as occasion may require. Their labour begins at two years old, when they are broke in and worked gently for the ensuing twelvemonth; from three to four, but more frequently to the ages of five or six, they are put to all the ordinary labours of the yoke; and their day's work at plough or barrow, is usually performed in a journey of about eight hours, during which time the plough-boy has a peculiar mode of cheering them on, with a song he continually chaunts in low notes, suddenly broken, and raising a whole octave."

Disposal of Worked Oxen.-P. $29." The usual prac

tice in this district, is to sell the steers, at four or five' years old, to the graziers in the county of Somerset, who feed them for a supply to the Bath, Bristol, and London markets."

SHEEP." North Devon."-P. 338. "The native sheep' of this district is the Exmoor" (?) a horned animal, with a moderately-long staple of wool, which heretofore, and before the cloth manufacture fled from this county into Yorkshire, was much used by the clothiers of North and South Molton, Cullumpton, Thorverton, Tiverton, and other places in the county. The fattened wethers of this breed, at three years old, will usually weigh about 15 lbs. per quarter, and average four pounds and a half of washed wool to the fleece; worth at present about thirteen-pence per pound."

The above notice stands at the head of the Reporter's section, "Sheep" which is closed by a table, exhibiting more than twenty different varieties,--" native," "neighbour," "distant,' "foreign," that were found in the County, at the time of his survey-most of them mongrels, otherwise-crosses.-The four "native breeds" are thus described.

P. 352. "Exmoor, horned, white legs and face, with a moderately long staple of wool, pure.

"Dartmoor, ditto, ditto. !!* ~

"South Devon Nott, with brown face and legs, long wool, pure.

"Bampton Nott, white face and legs, short wool, pure." The other " pure" breeds are the Dorsetshire and the South Downs. The rest are of course impures.

Markets for Sheep.-P. 384. "The fair of Bampton is the most remarkable of all for sheep, and where a most excellent show is always to be met with, on the first Tuesday in November."

SWINE.-P. 355. "The native hog of this country grows to a large size, stands high upon its legs, lengthy, of a large and coarse bone, flat-sided, and in its store state seldom seen in any thing like tolerable condition."

P. 356. "The proportion of fat to lean, or in other words, of pork to bacon, in the above breeds, may be thus stated: the native country hog, when well fed, will produce for one pound of pork, one pound and a quarter of bacon. This, crossed with the Leicester or Hampshire breed, will produce for three-quarters of a pound of pork,

one

* In the native breed of Dartmore, there are scarcely two individuals. alike. Some with horns, others without; having only knots where horns usually stand. Viewing them in the mass, there are horns of every size and shape; and faces and legs of every hue.

one pound of bacon. This cross again varied by the Chinese, will in two-thirds of the time, produce for twothirds of a pound of pork, one pound of bacon."

I have transcribed the above passage; notwithstanding it is written in a language that I do not quite understand. PIGEONS. The subjoined extract is much clearer to my comprehension, though it may seem to extend beyond the limits of credibility. It shows, in strong coloring, the mischiefs which an ACCURATE CULTIVATOR is liable to, through the want of a sufficient law, to guard his property from what is, at present, unpunishable theft.

P. 357. "These birds often fly to a great distance for their food, and when they can find corn to eat, seldom prey upon any thing else. They begin to eat corn about the middle of July, and rarely want the same food at the stacks, in the straw-yards or in the fields, until the end of barley sowing, which is about Old May-day, and which includes a period of 280 days, or better than three-quarters of the year; the rest of the time they live upon the seeds of weeds and bentings. It is somewhere stated, that in England and in Wales there are 20,000 dove-houses, averaging about 100 pair of old pigeons. We will take this estimate at three-fourths, which will equal 1,125,000 pair of dove-house pigeons in England and Wales. These, to speak moderately, will consume (with what they carry home to their young) one pint of corn per pair daily, and which for 140 days, being half the period they are supposed to subsist upon corn, amounts to 157,500,000 pints of corn consumed annually, throughout England and Wales, by these voracious and insatiate vermin, for in no other light can they possibly be viewed or considered by the Agriculturist. The amount and value of this consumption, when brought into bushels, and averaged at the present price of wheat, rye, barley, oats, beans and pease, and assuming that an equal quantity of each corn is thus consumed (but which is far from being the case, as the wheat is not only the most inviting, but by far the most exposed to the ravages of these birds, both at seed-time and preceding harvest) will stand thus: 157,500,000 pints = 4,921,875 Winchester bushels, which at 6s. per bushel, the present average price of the grain and pulse before enumerated, amounts to 1,476,5621. 10s. value of the agricultural produce of the country annually consumed in this manner; a circumstance most respectfully submitted to the consideration of the Honourable Board of Agriculture, in comparison with the true and natural value of these birds, as a luxury for the table, their dung for the use of dyers, or the purposes of manure. To this statement is to be

added

added the irreparable injury they commit in seed-time, picking up every grain of seed wherever they alight, and the corn trod under and also beaten out by their wings before harvest."

For another instance of animated strictures, on the same side of this unsettled point, see NORTHERN DEPARTMENT, West Riding of Yorkshire.-And for a striking evidence produced, on the opposite side,- see MIDLAND DEPARTMENT,-Parkinson's Huntingdonshire;-in which these companiable domestics are styled "an encourageable species of fowls."

As a moderator, in this matter, which is by no means unimportant, I will just observe-that, in seed time, pigeons are much less hurtful to the husbandman, than is generally imagined. They neither "scrape" like the pheasant, nor "joll" like the rook. They merely, I believe, pick up the grains of corn which lie exposed to the eyes at the surface. Nevertheless, on the near approach, and during the early part, of harvest, pigeons become truly noxious, in a corn country. At that consecrated season, there surely ought to be a heavy penalty, leviable on those who suffer them to fly abroad;-or a law to render it allowable to treat them as birds of prey, at that time,-by those whose property they may be destroying.

Viewing the propensities and effects of a flight of pigeons, the year round (the time of harvest perhaps excepted) they might, I think, be truly termed the slovenly farmer's friend. The seeds of weeds are their natural food.

This, however, furnishes not any good argument against the suggestions, above offered. Slovenliness-the propa gation of weeds-might well be made a legal disqualification from the occupancy of arable lands,-as being an inveterate enemy of the community.

WEST SOMERSETSHIRE

IN DIVIDING the territory of England into AGRICULTURAL

DEPARTMENTS, the COUNTY of SOMERSET extends, unnaturally, into three of them.

NORTH SOMERSETSHIRE, which borders on the vales of Glocestershire and North Wiltshire, forms an inseparable parcel of the WESTERN, or DAIRY Department. * WEST SOMERSETSHIRE is equally inseparable from the SOUTHWESTERN OF PENINSULAR Department. And the remainder of the County, which borders on South Wiltshire and Dorsetshire, naturally unites with the SOUTHERN Department.

WEST SOMERSETSHIRE, at the present period of time, comprizes two distinct formations of territory.-The one ABORIGINAL,- -as left by the convulsion of elements,— the other ALLUVIAL; having been formed by floods and tides, since the surface of the island was molded as it is, at present.

The ALLUVIAL DEPOSIT,-the WATERLANDS,-have been principally caused by the feculencies of two distinct rivers, the BRUE and the PARRET;-with which,-obstructed and thrown back by the tides and eagres of the Bristol channel,-two distinct compartments, or " levels," of valuable lands, have been formed. These levels are separated, unless toward the mouths of the rivers,-by a natural embankment,-a tall narrow ridge;-the Polden Hill.

The level which is situated on the NORTH side of that line of separation, is named the "BRENT MARSHES," from a steep conical hillock which rises near their center: or "the Brue and Axe Marshes"; the Brook, Axe, passing along their northern margin.

.

The sub-divisions of those alluvial lands which lie on the SOUTH side of that barrier, bear the popular name of SEDGEMOORS", as King's Sedgemoor, West Sedgemoor, &c. &c.:-names, doubtlessly, attached to them while they lay in a moory, sedgey state. But, at present, by an increase of alluvial matter, and, more latterly, through the aid of drainage, the principal part of them are become of a valuable marshland quality.

Hence, in speaking of those two extensive levels of marsh land, I will denominate them by the NORTH or

BRUE