Report on the Farm-Prize Competition of ISlb. 577 



Tlie huildincjs at the home farm have been principally erected 

 hy the tenant, and are for the most part of wood, and although 

 capable of housing a great numl^er of stock, are not very con- 

 venient, which consequently entails more labour. They, together 

 with the house, which, although old-fashioned, is very comfort- 

 able, were last year put into thorough repair by the Duke. 



The new buildings lately erected are very complete, com- 

 prising two exceedingly good cottages, two capital yards, and 

 the best feeding-shed we have ever seen. It is 33 feet wide, 

 with a passage down the centre, and capable of holding 32 head 

 of cattle. 



Owing to the strike, Mr. Checkley has laboured this year 

 under considerable disadvantage, but although there had not 

 been a hoe in any of the corn, there was not a weed to be seen, 

 and had we not known to the contrary, we should have thought 

 everything had gone on in its usual routine. The amount of 

 corn and cake consumed is very large, and the labour account is 

 also very heavy, yet the results have undoubtedly justified the 

 expenditure ; for although everything is well done, there is no 

 extravagant outlay, and it was owing to the thorough good 

 management of the farm in all its details, and the uniform 

 character and goodness of the live stock, that we unanimously 

 awarded Mr. Checkley the First Prize. 



Second Prize Farm, 



occupied by Mr. Thomas Crouch, and held by him under the 

 Duke of Bedford on a sixteen years' lease, which expires at 

 Michaelmas, 1875. 



The road from Woburn to Ampthill runs on the side of the 

 farm, which is three miles from each of those places ; the oppo- 

 site side joins the First Prize Farm. It contains 262 a. Or. 16 p. 

 of arable, and 195 a. 1 r. 2^^ p. of grass land. Half the farm, Mr. 

 Wyatt informs me, lies on the Oxford clay, and the other half on 

 the Lower Greensand, the soil being part light and part heavy. 

 The farm, which was formerly in three occupations, is now very 

 compact, the Duke of Bedford having spent a very considerable 

 sum during the last fifteen years in draining and other improve- 

 ments. Some of the draining done by the Duke across the 

 lands, Mr. Crouch says, has not in some places answered very 

 well, and he has at his own expense put in a few drains down 

 the furrows and intersecting the old ones. The accompanying 

 plan shows the position of the house and buildings, arable, and 

 grass land, roads, 6cc. The fences, which on one part of the 

 farm are entirely new quicks, were planted by the Duke, and, as 

 in Mr. Checkley's case, have only been thrown to the tenant two 



VOL. X.— S. S. " 2 P 



