The Agriculture of Staffordshire. 
303 
was established in 1867, and has held meetings once a month up 
to Midsummer in each year, besides an annual meeting, and has 
discussed such topics as the local taxation, malt-tax, the cattle- 
plague, &c. The game question has not been discussed, and it 
has not become a great grievance, though in some cases ground 
game is much too numerous. 
Farm Buildings. 
In Staffordshire they are generally better, more substantial, and 
more central, than they are in the arable counties. Less room is 
required both for corn and stock, and the good but limited 
accommodation which dairy stock requires can be secured at a 
moderate outlay compared with the value of the land. An econo- 
mical system of feeding has been adopted, which introduces the 
use of machinery. A root-pulper and a chaff-cutter, at least, are 
almost always found on dairy farms, and the addition of horse- 
gear and a thrashing-machine is A'ery common. A further ex- 
tension, to include a steam-engine and mills for grinding and 
crushing, has been made on a great many estates. There are 
perhaps more fixed steam-engines and more improved machinery 
on that of Mr. Sneyd, of Keele Hall, than on any other of the 
same extent. Those who are interested in the steaming of chaff 
may like to know that the practice is carried out well and 
cheaply b}' a tenant-farmer, Mr. Harding, of Acton Trussell, who 
feeds a considerable number of stalled oxen. The boiler of a 
fixed steam-engine, a large iron vat, which is easily filled and 
emptied, and a tramway for the conveyance of the food to the 
troughs, are the principal features. There are very few such 
establishments, and the general opinion is that the cooking of 
roots and chaff has been superseded by pulping and mixing. 
Cooking corn, especially maize-meal for pigs, is very general. 
The dairy farmers are more apt than arable farmers at all such 
manipulations. They are more accustomed to what the latter 
would consider to be troublesome work. Their establishments 
are larger, and in some respects more homely ; there are, as a 
rule, more servants in the house, and there are the calves which 
must have their food prepared, and a pot boiling for them on the 
kitchen-fire. 
Straw and roots are the most important home-grown feeding 
articles ; in arable districts generally they are abundant, in dairy 
districts they are very scarce. The dairy farmer has learned to 
use them with economy ; he knows that straw with meal, &c., 
are to a great extent substitutes for roots, and that roots are 
relatively costly food on heavy land. He uses, as a rule, less 
than half the quantity of roots that the root - growing arable 
