18 
Report on the Farm-Prize Competition, 1878. 
The soil is described as mixed, mostly heavy, and the subsoil 
various, but mostly clay. 
The house and main portions of the buildings are on nearly 
the highest portion of the farm. The new buildings are good, 
the new cow-house being the best arranged of any we saw during 
our inspection.* The mode of supplying the animals with 
food, litter, and water, and of getting rid of the manure, liquid 
and solid, is excellent, and does great credit to the designer. The 
liquid manure is conveyed by pipes to a tank some distance from 
the buildings, and is used for irrigating some lower-lying pasture- 
land. A small fixed steam-engine is used for chaff-cutting and 
crushing corn, &c. 
The land is of very undulating character, of good fair quality, 
and the farm, as a whole, possesses many advantages. The cot- 
tages and farm-buildings at the lower end of the farm are rather a 
sorry lot : Mr. Gibbons accounts for this by stating that he 
would rather have only one homestead, and therefore simply 
keeps the sheds here for young cattle and swine. 
There are 6 cottages, 3 of which are held with the farm, and 
3 under a different hiring. 
Mr. Gibbons pavs about SO.s. per acre annually for labour, and 
expends a sum exceeding a year's rent of his farm upon pur- 
chased food for his stock. He pays his men at the rate of Irom 
14.9. to \bs. per week, allowing them 1 quart of cider per day, 
from Lady-day to Michaelmas, and extra for harvest. 
The cows are milked by women, who are paid ?>s. per week for 
milking night and morning. 
The returns in the shape of pork and dairy produce are large. 
Mr. Gibbons informed us that he fattened annually about 200 
pigs, at an average weight of 200 lbs. each. 
Cattle. — At our first visit, in January, there were on the farm 
76 cows, 16 two-year-old heifers in-calf, 24 yearling heifers, 
and 2 bulls ; and on our second visit, 77 cows in-milk, 5 cows 
in-calf, 24 yearling heifers, 3 bulls, and 33 weaning-calves. 
Sheep. — 45 breeding-ewes, 63 ewe tegs, 14 wether tegs, and 2 
rams. 
Sioine. — 12 breeding-sows, 140 store and fatting pigs. 
Horses kept on the farm consist of 7 cart-horses and 4 cart- 
colts, 2 nag colts, a pony, and a cob. 
A large ([uantity of poultry is reared, but no separate account 
of the returns from this source is kept. 
The dairy cows, particularly the young ones, and also the 
yearlings and weaning-calves, are a very superior lot, affording 
* For i)lii.stn\ti(iiis of these buildin<2:s and n dotailod dcspription of llie farm, 
ser the ' Ucjioit on \\w Somcrstshire Farm-I'ri/.o Competition, 187.0,' pp. 529 (o 
54.'} of vol. .\i., Second Series, of this ' .Journal,' 1875. 
