The Farm Prize Competitions. 219 



(Salop) Show, Mv. Belcher captured eight first prizes for shires, 

 and won outright the two 25-guinea challenge cups, having 

 won them for three years in succession ; both of these cups 

 have been replaced and both of them won again by Mr. Belcher 

 in the years 1913 and 1914. Mr. Belcher is now devoting 

 attention to the stallion trade ; his three-year-old Bellaport 

 Fu7'est King was highly commended at the Shrewsbury Royal 

 Show, and has been let at a good figure to the Minsterley 

 Society. 



The occupier of this holding is also the owner, having 

 purchased the farm a year ago, but nothing about the premises 

 suggested that the place was likely to suffer from want of 

 attention to those matters of maintenance and repair usually 

 effected by a non-occupying landlord. All the buildings are 

 commodious, up-to-date, and tidy, and fejices, ditches and 

 gates were in first-rate order. And Mr. Belcher (or does the 

 credit belong to Mrs Belcher?) is to be congratulated on a very 

 beautiful garden. 



The second prize in this class went to Mr. John Edward 

 Bourne, for his farms, near Market Drayton. The farms 

 lie between the main roads from Newport via Market Drayton 

 to Nantwich, and that from Stafford through Woore to the 

 same place, being distant about twelve miles from Whitchurch 

 on the west, and the same distance from Stoke on the east. 

 There are two holdings some distance from each other. 

 Most of the land is light and sandy, though some is 

 stronger. The total acreage of the farms is 485 acres, of which 

 about 224 are arable. The lighter land is cropped on a six- 

 course rotation, with seeds down two years, and two j'ears 

 roots including potatoes and carrots. On the stronger land 

 a five course rotation is practised, w4th three-fifths in corn. 

 The district is too late for any catch cropping. The cropping 

 this year was as follows : — 



20 acres swedes. 



4 „ cabbage 



10 „ mangolds 



16 ,, potatoes 



4 ,, carrots 



.32 ., barley 



56 „ seeds 



32 ,, wheat 



50 ,, oats 



224 



All the arable land was clean and well cultivated, with 

 heavy root crops, and the Judges commented specially upon his 

 growth of clover hay, which they regarded as the heaviest seen 

 in the competition ; there was also an extraordinarily good piece 



