Prize Competition^ 1885. 
167 
years old, mown twice ; also the small potatoes and the swedes 
and mangolds planted in the intervals of the garden ; also every 
bit of grass that could he mown, whether in orchard or paddock 
or by hedgerow, made up the food-supply of the year. Every 
economy is practised in order to the maintenance of a most 
liberal system. The garden and orchard planted by the tenant 
bear equal testimony with the farm to his industry and energy. 
Gooseberry bushes planted 5 ft. by 4 ft., with potatoes between 
the rows, and turnips or mangolds between the trees, yield a crop 
of " Lancashire lads " or " Crown bobs," which are sold in 
Liverpool at from Is. to 2s. a dozen (= 21) lbs.. And it may 
be here mentioned that Mr. Loxham, a quiet laborious home- 
keeping man, does not attend markets himself, but sells every- 
thing to dealers who come for it. Probably, in this way, he 
loses a certain amount of profit ; but in a small business like 
this, where his own is nearly the whole labour of the farm, he is 
probably right to do his marketing by another. A considerable 
revenue is derived from both garden and orchard produce — 
white codling apples, pears, cherries, damsons, planted 15 ft 
square, are fairly productive. Before leaving the house we may 
mention that the milk not set for cream is churned whole three 
times a week, the butter-milk going to the pigs and to the 
calves. The calves receives whole-milk for two weeks, which is 
gradually changed to butter-milk with about 1 lb. of Indian 
meal apiece, and they have to fight through their difficulties of 
inevitable diarrhoea as best they can ; generally succeeding, it 
seems, in the end, and probably benefiting by the fact that only 
one or two have to be attended to and cared for by the mistress. 
We hope the reader has got the general impression of this 
farm as a level area, stretching from the road in a somewhat 
narrow-oblong, divided by the thinnest and trimmest of fences 
into fields of 3 to 5 acres each. The low-roofed farmhouse and 
little homestead are reached by a short offset from the main 
thoroughfare, with gates at the roadside. The land is now a 
blackish soil of sufficient substance, originally moss, and its 
subsoil of clay is nearer the surface than it used to be. Walking 
round the fields we see that the rotation is potatoes, wheat, 
clover, kept perhaps a second year, and then ploughed up for 
potatoes — first a very shallow furrow in the autumn, but cross- 
ploughed in the spring 7 or 8 inches deep; "Magnums" are chiefly 
grown, changed every other year — a finer piece was never grown 
than we saw last July. A plot was shown us in the outlying 
field of potatoes, clearly proving the great importance of a 
change of " seed." The land planted with the home-grown sets 
in the midst of that which had been grown from sets sent from 
Cumberland was very shabby indeed in comparison. Going 
round the fields in July we found a magnificent promise of 
