130 Report on the Dairy and Stock-Farm 
to three full weeks of his own time in the year. His cow-club 
insurance costs 85. Putting his heifer out to lay costs 305. He 
buys food for cow and pigs to the amount of 10/. 10s. yearly. 
If the charges be put together they will be found to amount to 
221. 18s. a year, and his receipts come to 31Z. To the former 
side of the account must be added that he thus has house-rent 
free, and a certain amount of profit from garden and from 
poultry. To the other side of the account it must be added, 
that the three weeks' wages of the man must be worth at least 
21., and that the labour of the wife is considerable ; and that 
some extra expense must be added for maintenance of the pig- 
stock. It is plain, however, that the whole household benefit 
largely by the interest and occupation, and, so far as the boys 
and girls are concerned, by the education involved. And as to 
the mere balance of the account, those who are thrifty can thus 
accumulate sundry small savings and returns, which, under the 
crofter system, become possible. The system is largely preva- 
lent in Cheshire — the crofts are generally let direct from the 
owner, not through the farmer. Lord ToUemache has been good 
enough to give me the statistics of his large property in the 
county ; and he has no fewer than 250 crofter tenants, who hold 
directly from himself, and are thus made not only more thrifty, 
more prosperous, happier, and more contented in themselves 
and families, but really more serviceable and most trustworthy, 
and, in short, better servants on the farms to which, they are 
attached. It is a capital feature in any great agricultural 
system, of which Cheshire thus gives an example to other 
counties. 
The second prize in this class we have awarded to Mr. Thomas 
Parton, of Chorlton Farm, in the parish of Weston, about 4 miles 
from Crewe. There are here 166 acres, of which 84 are in 
permanent grass, and 82 arable, the property of Sir H. D. 
Broughton, Bart. The farm is let from year to year at a rent 
of 287/., in addition to which the tithe amounts to 18/. 6s. Qd. ; 
land-tax, 6/. 9s. 2d. ; poor's rate, 15/. 4s. Id. ; school rate, 
1/. 16s. 8f/. ; other rates, 4/. ; or 333/. 6s. hd. in all — almost 
exactly 21. an acre. The rent was raised 13s. an acre when 
]\Ir. Parton succeeded to it on the death of his father, thirteen 
years ago, and no reduction has been either made or asked for 
since that time. The arable land is generally a light soil, 
sometimes gravelly, the rest being generally a heavy soil in 
pasture. The grass-land has been drained — 20 acres of it 
thoroughly, 80 acres partially — at the tenant's sole expense. 
Mr. Parton has stocked up 8000 yards of old fences, levelling 
the same, first placing pipes in the ditches that were filled up. 
