Report on the Farm-Prize Competition^ 1878. 
3 
Society, and were furnished by him with the foregoing and 
other necessary information. 
We started on our tour of inspection the next morning, and 
although the weather was decidedly unfavourable for such work, 
we managed to keep all our appointments, and to complete our 
survey of the farms according to our programme on the 29th 
day of the same month, when we parted from each other at 
Gloucester, having previously arranged the date of our next 
survey. 
This first visit was principally devoted to the inspection of 
the live stock in the yards and on the farms, of the state of the 
fields cropped in the autumn, and of the roots grown in 1877 
that were not consumed, regard being also paid to the pre- 
paration of the land for the spring sowing of cereals, roots, and 
other crops. 
Our next meeting was at Gloucester on the 20th of May, and 
we commenced our inspection on the following morning, revers- 
ing the order in which the various farms had been previously 
visited, making a most careful survey of everything we deemed 
important on each farm, and finishing at Bath on the 30th of 
the same month. With only one exception, it rained at intervals 
every day ; these and previous rains had made the land very wet, 
low-lying and clay fields having suffered severely, and all the 
corn crops being more or less injured by the superabundant 
moisture. 
We agreed in opinion that we had never seen such heavy 
crops of meadow and artificial grasses ; and that although the 
stock and dairy farms had in some instances suffered much from 
the poaching of the cattle and consequent waste of grass, parti- 
cularly near the gateways, which were simply a mass of mud, 
nevertheless, on the whole, the occupiers of these descriptions of 
farms had a good prospect of a profitable return on their invest- 
ments. During this and our former visit to the competing farms, 
and in our journeys to and from them, we were much impressed 
by the fact that nearly all the cattle we saw were either Short- 
horns, or crosses of that valuable breed, more or less distinct. 
The exceptions were here and there a white-faced animal — whose 
ancestry was evidently traceable to the Herefords, — an occasional 
blue roan — whose dam was Welsh, — and a few Devons of a very 
moderate class. In all the cases that came under our immediate 
notice, the bulls used were Shorthorns, and when they were from 
pedigree herds, and the animals of even only moderately good 
form, excellent results were clearly traceable in the young stock. 
The use of pure-bred males cannot be too much impressed 
on the owners of cows in the important dairy districts which 
it has been our lot to visit ; and we feel confident that the small 
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