470 
Farm Reports. 
mown with a Burgess and Key's grass-mowing machine, and 
the labour is paid for as day work. The stacks are about 
5 yards wide and as long as necessity requires. As soon as the 
hay is off, the land is manured for wheat as already described. 
The remaining half of this course is fed off by sheep during 
the summer, and then manured as soon as possible. 
Cattle. 
Mr. Hudson does not breed any beasts now. In former years 
he had, at different times, herds of various breeds ; but now all 
the cattle on the farm, except two or three Alderney cows, are 
steers bought in during the autumn and fed off during the 
winter and spring. A few are also bought for summer grazing, 
but many beasts could not be kept during the summer. From 
100 to 140 steers (mostly Shorthorns), according to the root crop, 
are bought in every year at from two and a-half to three years 
old, at Peterborough fair — which is held in the first week of 
October — and any deficiencies are made up at Norwich. 
In the winter these steers are kept in lots of about ten or a 
dozen in small foldyards, having sheds along about one side and 
a half of each. They get about 2 bushels of roots, and from 
10 to 12 lbs. of linseed cake each per diem, as well as a bushel 
of cut hay (when there is any), or cut straw after the hay is 
finished ; and the yards are well littered with straw every 
morning. They begin to be sold off in January, and they ought 
all to be gone by May. 
The manure is carted out in January and put into heaps, 
being subsequently used for mangolds and swedes ; that made 
afterwards is put on the land intended for wheat. The heaps 
are made in the following manner : — A bottom of good mould, 
about 6 inches thick, is first laid, and the manure is then carried 
on by carts, which are drawn on to the heap, tilted, and then 
return the same way, being drawn over what has just been 
brought. The heaps are from 25 to 30 yards long, from 9 to 
10 yards wide, and about 5 feet high. 
When nearly the whole of the winter-fed beasts are sold, a 
sufficient number are bought to feed off the grass. They go into 
the pastures in the middle of May during the daytime, and in 
the evening come up to the foldyards, getting then about 
7 lbs. of linseed cake each. If the weather is very hot they go 
into the pastures by night and remain in the yards all day. The 
greater the number of these summer-grazed beasts the fewer are 
those bought at Peterborough. 
