126 
Report on the Dairy and Stock-Farm 
premises on all our visits always presented the appearance of 
constant cleanliness and good management. 
Mr. Lea now holds Stapleford Hall Farm on a yearly tenancy ; 
he has occupied it for seventeen years, and during that time he 
has effected many improvements both in the land and home- 
stead. In particular, he has eradicated more than two miles of 
old fences, and made a mile and a half of new fences, at a cost 
of 122/. He has spent 60Z. in filling up old marl-pits and 
levelling the land, 35/. in making and levelling the stock-yard, 
30/. in making roads, 160/. in erecting two Dutch hay-barns, 
each standing on 25 yards by 8 yards, and 16 feet high ; 63/. in 
walling and iron fencing ; 315/. in draining and ditching, the 
landlord finding pipes ; 780/. in bones, besides a quantity 
of guano and other manures ; upwards of 1600/. in all, in what 
may nearly all be called landlord's improvements. Though he 
has thus done a great deal for the good of the estate, certainly 
the accounts he has rendered to us show that he has also done 
well for himself. 
The arable land was covered on our last visit with admirable 
crops of wheat and oats, swedes and potatoes ; and a great crop 
of clover had been saved and housed. It was everywhere clean, 
and in good heart. The meadows also were full of produce, 
which was being cut, partly by machine, and, where too heavy 
or too awkward for that, by hand ; there costing 5*. an acre. 
The pastures were full of clover ; and it is noteworthy as showing 
what a tenant, especially in this county, thinks of the pasture- 
land as being to his own credit, that here, and in every other 
case, it was insisted that we should walk or drive zigzag over 
the whole surface of it, just as we needed to do, in order to 
realise the quality of the potato-crop, the swedes, the oats, or the 
wheat. Every square yard of it was claimed as due to the tehant's 
own management. A man generally walks once, or it may be 
twice, across a grass-field, in order to realise its character, but 
zigzag over the whole of an arable crop, in order to be sure of a 
correct impression. Here, however, as on other farms, every 
part of the pasture-fields, as of the arable, was claimed as due 
in great measure to artificial management. 
The stock upon the farm included 91 cows of a Shorthorn 
type — large-framed, useful cattle ; 20 of them two-year-ohl 
heifers. A certain number had come to the pail late in the 
year for the provision 6{ winter milk for sale in Liverpool. On 
the previous year, when 85 cows were milked, 18 tons of cheese 
had been sold] at an average price of 73.9. 6cZ. per 120 lbs. ; 
1944 lbs. of butter had been sold at an average price of Is. 2x1. ; 
4905 gallons of milk had been sold at an average price of 
llfZ. a gallon ; 68 fat hogs had been sold at an average price of 
