The highest price paid for a Hereford was 4,000 guineas
for Lord Wilton in 1884.

_Devons._

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.

Vancouver, a few years after this, praised their activity in work and
their unrivalled aptitude to fatten, but says they were then
declining in their general standard of excellence, and in numbers,
owing to the great demand for them from other parts of England, where
the buyers (Mr. Coke, who had established a valuable herd of them,
and others) spared neither pains nor price to obtain those of the
highest excellence.

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
animal