The Winter 0/ 1885-86. 
393 
cutting lip all hay and straw, mixed with wheat-meal and malt-dust for 
youns; stock, with the same mixture for sheep, but usipg cotton-cake in place 
of wheat-meal. 
"5. Too late for early green crops in spring; had vetches ready to feed off 
the latter end of May, 
"6. None. 
" 7. The shelter for sheep in this district is very short, and undoubtedly 
it requires much more; those that were sheltered improved much the 
fastest. 
" 9. The peculiarities of season and loss of root crop mostly, reduced the 
price of beef one-third, the markets being overstocked with half-fattened 
■cattle ; what few were sent properly finished, and well, commanded a better 
price by quite one penny per pound. 
" 10. To winter-plou^^h and manure for early root-crops ; to use the culti- 
vator in spring ; and, above all, get the roots in early. The same applies to 
barley and oats, and all other spring crops." 
Mr. Henry J. Sheldon, Brailes House, Shipston-on-Stour, 
Warwickshire : 
" 1. My farm (about 800 acres) is situated at the southern end of Warwick- 
shire, in a hilly district, the land in the parish rising in successive steps to a 
great altitude, and the soil varying as it rises from strong clay to strong loam, 
medium loam to light sand on the highest ground, which is on the water- 
shed from which the water runs both ways into the Thames and Severn. 
Being such a high district, the climate is cold, and the spring generally very 
late, and we have more than an average of rain. Some of the land is good, 
some cold and hungrj'. 
" 2. The summer of 1885 was, on the whole, a favourable one to everything 
except the growth of roots and second clovers. The hay-crop was very large 
and well secured. There was a fortnight's wet weather in the middle of 
harvest, which stained all the barley. The autumn was cold and wet, the 
winter terribly severe, the snow lying till the 19th of March. There had 
been patches of snow on some parts of my farm ever since December. Since 
then, with the exception of two weeks, it has been very wet and cold. Very 
high floods, ground saturated with water, and only about eighteen days that 
horses have been able to do any work on the strong or loamy lands. 
" 3. Most unfavourable. I succeeded in growing some pretty good swedes 
'OU the highest part of the farm, on the sand, and about half a crop of man- 
golds ; but on the stronger and better land the roots never grew, and were 
much damaged by a grub at the roots, so I only had, on the whole, about a 
third of a crop of roots. Turnips planted after vetches and trifoliuni were a 
total failure. 
" 4. I was obliged to keep everything much shorter of succulent food than 
I liked, and substitute dry food for it. The ewe-tegs (now shearlings) lay on 
grass until the end of February, receiving a large quantity of clover-hay, oats, 
and bran. The ram and wether tegs were treated in the same way until 
•Christmas, when they were put on swedes. The cattle had not roots till 
Christmas ; straw-chaff mixed with some meal (oats and barley), and some of 
it moistened with linseed-soup, for the bulk of their food, and some hay at 
night. Since Christmas I ventured on giving them some pulped roots also 
mixed with the chaff, and I found I should then have sufficient to carry me 
through, with economy. 1 also gave them some ensilage from a stack, but 
much more dry food than usual, and they have got through the winter, on the 
whole, well ; but the expense has been greater from having used much more 
corn in their diet. 
" 5. Seeing last autumn that the root-crop was so deficient, I planted a 
VOL. XXII. — s. s. 2d 
