90] A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



casualties. The lambs are not shorn, and the wethers are sold as 

 shear hogs, before a second shearing ; they produce wool on an 

 average 71bs. to the fleece, or four to the tod of 281bs., the best 

 shearlings having produced 131bs. to the fleece : the aged ewes 

 when fat average 24lbs. per quarter, and shear hog wethers about 

 the same, but have sometimes risen to 35lbs. the quarter. 



The cow stock is of the Hereford breed, from the stock of Mr. 

 Price, of Worcestershire, and Mr. Tomkins, of Herefordshire. The 

 preference is given to that breed on account of their aptitude to 

 fatten, the land here being of a good staple for feeding : they are 

 generally red in colour, with white faces. 



This stock consists of about 200 head of cattle : the bull calves 

 are reared upon cows, and the oxen fattened when grown without 

 being worked, and some Hereford oxen are bought-in of four or 

 live years old, for fattening at grass or in the stalls upon hay, tur- 

 nips, and sometimes oil-cake, very little corn being thus given. 



The cultivation is by horses, principally of the Suffolk punch 

 breed, colour light chesnut, of which are kept two stallious, and 

 about forty mares and geldings. 



The hogs are chiefly pure Suffolk, of a good size and kindly ; 

 the stock consists of about ninety, from six to eight being breed- 

 ing sows : they are fed principally with potatoes, Swedish turnips, 

 and refuse from the oxen. 



There is a walled garden of seven acres, furnished witli all the 

 varieties of vegetables and fruit; the demesne is thus rendered 

 highly productive of human necessaries, timber, grain, fat cattle, 

 sheep and wool, and of the comforts and luxuries of life. 



Three threshing-mills are employed ; the first fixed and perma- 

 nent in the farm yard, a six-horse power, by Forrest, of Shiffhal ; 

 a second, of less power, at an out barn ; and a third, portable, moving 

 from place to place as wanted : the large one will fetch wheat out 

 clean at the rate of 120 bushels for the day's work. 



LORD AN SON'S Farm and Demesne. The family-seat of Shug- 

 borough is an elegant and magnificent building, covered with white 

 stucco in the best style. It is delightfully situated in the Vale of 

 Trent, at the confluence of the Penk and Sow with that river, and 

 lies between Stafford and Lichfield. The demesne is a rich plain 

 of several hundred acres, well wooded and watered by the above 

 rivers, and skirted by distant hills, variously disposed by nature and 

 art, part in arable culture, part plantation, and some in a state of 

 native wildness. On the eminences are an Obelisk and a Triumphal 





