Farm Prize Competition, 1911. 299 



show ill Jane, whatever may have been its fate in the drought 

 which was to follow. One expected to see great things in the 

 way of I'oot crops, and in this we were not disappointed — 

 indeed a spirit of envy was aroused. The stacking in the 

 fields, while possessing the advantage of convenience at harvest 

 time, and reducing the risk of loss in the unfortunate event of 

 a homestead fire, made one think of the subsequent labour of 

 haulage, and seemed to afford free play to the vermin which 

 made their home in the hedge banks. 



The system of double yokes, or two journeys to the fields for 

 the teams of horses, raised the question as to whether there was 

 any advantage in this method, either in the amount of work done, 

 or to the horses. It was suggested by one of the party that the 

 horses and men did not return to the stable until night, often 

 wet and cold, and that there was consequently some risk of the 

 former not receiving the same care and attention in grooming 

 and feeding and the same good rest as is obtainable when only 

 one journey to the fields is made, in which case the horses 

 are in the stable for good in the early afternoon, and the 

 horse-keeper has the remaining time at his disposal properly 

 and thoroughly to attend his charge ; indeed, the general 

 appearance of many of the horses seen gare point to the 

 argument. 



But not so in East Suffolk ; there, while doing apparently as 

 much work, the horses get into the stable in fair time in the 

 afternoon, having been resting only half an hour in the middle 

 of the day, instead of two and a half hours, and whether Shires 

 or-Suffolks the horses looked none the worse on this account. 

 Although East Suffolk is looked upon as the home of the Suffolk 

 Punch, the western side of the county claims many fine studs, 

 one of these being found on one of the competing farms, 

 while on another farm visited, well away from the Suffolk 

 border, in the county of Norfolk, none but Suffolk horses 

 were kept. 



A great feature in Norfolk is the enormous number of Irish 

 cattle \yhich are yearly imported, and the visitor wonders what 

 Norfolk would do without Ireland, or possibly, Ireland without 

 Norfolk. These cattle are to be seen in thousands on the fertile 

 marshes of the sea-board during the spring and summer, where 

 many of them become fat, the remainder being fattened at the 

 homesteads during the winter months, where they serve the 

 dual purpose of converting huge quantities of straw and roots 

 into manure, and, with the assistance of cakes and meal, of 

 producing beef. The cattle are not given cake for the first 

 fourteen days after coming off the marshes, it being considered 

 wasteful lo do so. They are first thoroughly "broken" to roots 

 and chaff, the cake coming later. The quantities of sliced roots 



