200 Tlie Farm Prize Competitions. 



By the time of the Shrewsbury Meeting in 1884, the 

 popularity of these competitions was well established. Prizes 

 were offered by the local committee for arable farms, dairy 

 farms, and for small farms of either character, within the 

 counties of Shropshire, Staffordshire, and Herefordshire. Once 

 more the entries were good, numbering twenty-one in all, 

 and a very interesting feature of this competition is the fact 

 that the winner in the dairy class was to figure again very 

 prominently in the prize list when the Society re-visited 

 Shrewsbury thirty years later, on which occasion he also had 

 the satisfaction of seeing his own son amongst the prize 

 winners. To win two prizes in the Society's farm competitions 

 is a very rare achievement; for a father and son to figure 

 in the same winning list is probably unique, and constitutes 

 a record of which both may very deservedly be proud. 



The farm prize competitions, held in connection with the 

 Shrewsbury Meeting this year (1914), were restricted to 

 farmers within the three counties of Montgomeryshire, Shrop- 

 shire, and Staffordshire. Within their boundaries almost every 

 variety of condition under which farming is carried on in the 

 country is to be met with. On the eastern side Staffordshire, 

 dotted as it is with great hives of industry, supplies the farmer 

 with the best of markets at his very dopr. Nevertheless in 

 the centre of the county is a tract of about 1,000 acres of land 

 which has never known the hand of man, where an interesting 

 experiment in land reclamation is being carried on at the 

 present moment. Chartley is famous as having been for so 

 many years the home of one of the herds of wild White 

 Cattle, and though the disappearance of these animals may be 

 regretted on historical and sentimental grounds, the land over 

 which they ranged can be put to a better use. The great 

 midland dairying district includes a part of Staffordshire 

 on its eastern side, and much milk is produced for the 

 big towns ; for the rest, the character of the farming is 

 of a varied nature, largely influenced by the proximity of 

 excellent markets. There is much that is beautiful in the 

 scenery of the county, but one cannot escape for long from 

 the disfiguring chimneys and spoil-heaps which mark the 

 progress of industry. In motoring through the district, 

 however, it is interesting to notice the progress which is 

 being made in planting up the great heaps of pit rubbish, and 

 a full account of this work will be found in another part of 

 this volume.' Passing westwards into Shropshire and thence 

 into Montgomeryshire, one traverses the great undulating plain 

 through which the river Severn flows, and of which Shrews- 

 bury is approximately the centre, a region more remote from 



' See page 70. 



