576 Report on the Farm-Prize Competition q/*1874. 



dairy, Mr. Checkley's labour is heavy, amounting to a little over 

 21. per acre. There are employed the whole of the year : — 



13 ordinary labourers, at 14s. per week. 



The shepherd receives Is. per head for every lamb reared 

 above the number of ewes put to the ram — half-a-ton of coals 

 and two pints of beer per day being allowed him in lambing 

 time. In hay harvest the men receive Is. per week extra and 

 2^ pints of beer per day, which is increased to five or six 

 pints when carting. The boys have (yd. per week extra and one 

 pint of ale per day. The whole of the grass is mown with the 

 -machine. 



In harvest, the shepherd and cowmen, who cannot be spared 

 for any piece work, have 5/. 10s. for the month, with beer, the 

 same as in hay harvest, and 6s. for the four Sundays. 



There are only two cottages on the farm, the rest of the 

 labourers coming from the adjoining villages. 



The following extras are paid : — For ridging. Id. per acre ; horse- 

 hoeing, the same ; drilling, l^d. per acre ; washing sheep, 3d. per 

 score ; sowing artificial manure, ^d. per cwt. ; laying down dung, 

 Id. per acre ; shearing sheep, 3s. per score, with five or six pints 

 of ale, a man being found to wind the wool and bring out the 

 sheep. 



Mr. Checkley does all his own threshing, having two six-horse 

 portable engines, with a fixed threshing-machine, at the home 

 farm ; and a portable engine, with patent straw elevator, at the 

 other farm. The corn is all cut with the reaper. 



The gates and fences, as I have before mentioned, have only 

 Ijeen in Mr. Checkley's hands for the last two years, but the 

 latter are now all nicely trimmed and very clean. Only a small 

 proportion of the boundary fences, which are anything but good, 

 belong to the farm, so that he is not in any way responsible 

 for them. 



The roads on the farm have all been made by the tenant, but 

 owing to the great distance from any good material, they have 

 been repaired up to now with a kind of sand, and are con- 

 sequently not quite so good as we should have liked to see them, 

 but Mr. Stephenson, the Duke's agent, told me that they were 

 intending very soon to have them improved. 



