304 Farm Prize Competition, 1911. 



rows or " chopped out " as turnips are. If chopped out, the 

 crop does much better in a dry season. 



Barley follows roots fed on the land by sheep receiving 

 cake, and is not especially manured, but if taken after wheat or 

 oats, 4 cwt. per acre of a special barley manure is applied. 

 Oats also usually follow roots fed on by sheep. If not, the 

 crop is manured with 4 cwt. of superphosphate and top dressed 

 with nitrate of soda. Clover is undersown in the barley crop. 

 Sometimes a field of mixed seeds is put in with the corn crop 

 on the poor, light land, and left down from two to four years 

 for feed for cattle and sheep. The fertility of the soil is thus 

 much improved, and good crops follow usually for several years. 

 Sainfoin and lucerne are both grown, the sainfoin being left 

 down for two or three years, and the lucerne for as long as six 

 or seven years. There is, however, some difficulty in obtaining a 

 good standing plant of sainfoin on this soil. Lucerne grows well, 

 and gives heavy yields. Wheat follows clover or mixed seeds, 

 peas or beans, and receives fifteen loads of farmyard manure. 

 If farmyard manure is not available, then 4 or 5 cwt. of rape 

 dust or castor meal, or else 3 cwt. of superphosphate and a top 

 dressing in spring, with nitrate of soda and muriate of potash. 



Catch cropping commences with the stubbles. As soon as 

 possible after harvest about 20 acres of clean wheat stubble are 

 drilled with trifolium. This is folded with sheep and lambs 

 the following May. The land is broken up behind the sheep 

 and drilled with swedes or white turnips. Twenty acres of 

 i-ye are sown on wheat or pea stubble to be fed on by sheep 

 and lambs early in spring, and followed by mangold, swedes, 

 or white turnips. On one occasion a good piece of rye was 

 grown, which was fed early in the spring, the land ploughed 

 and drilled with rape, also fed on by sheep, then once again 

 ploughed and drilled, this time with white turnip seed, and all 

 three crops were good. Winter tares are also sown in the 

 autumn, and either cut green or fed on by sheep and followed 

 by roots. The fertility of the soil is much improved by the 

 catch crops, as cake or corn is nearly always fed to the sheep 

 consuming them. It is, however, very difficult to keep tlie 

 land clean, and furthermore a little risk is run of not keeping 

 it healthy for sheep, great care and watchfulness being 

 necessary. The grassland is kept in good heart by the 

 droppings from cake fed stock grazing thereon, and by dress- 

 ings of compost and road scrapings, and occasionally farmyard 

 manure. If any artificial manure is used, it is either dissolved 

 bones or kainit, with superphosphate. 



The stock formed a most important feature on this farm, 

 horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs all being bred. The stock seen 

 on each of our visits was as follows : — 



