400 
The Winter 0/ 1885-86. 
enable him to meet the exigencies of such a season, by allowing him alwaj s 
to have in store a third of a j'ear's produce. For examjilo, if an ordinary year 
would give him 100 tons of hay, he should have in hand, at the end of the 
next haymaking, a stock of at least 30 tons." 
Col. H. A. Luttrell, Badgworth Court, Uxbridge, Somerset i 
" 1. On the blue lias, partly, some alluvial, in good condition. There are 
207 acres grass, and 30 acres arable. Climate good. 
" 2. A stagnation of grass in July and August, very little growth in the 
autumn. I have seldom seen so backward a spring for grass, or so good a 
one for putting in spring crops. 
" 3. Mangolds good. No swedes. The latter crops failed all through the 
county of Somerset. In travels through many counties I saw no swedes. 
" 4. Plenty of mangolds and hay. Used extra cake. 
" 5. No. I had a tine plant of vetches, and they did well. 
" 6. No. I hate the stutf (!). It is more like muck than anything I know. 
" 7. No shelter for sheep. None required. 
" 9. Beef, from foreign competition ; mutton, from failure of root crop> 
sheep being forced into the market before Christmas half fat, and on to March.. 
The demand for butchers' meat did not come up to the supply. 
" 10. That the turnip is an overrated article of food, and that ewes espe- 
cially do better on dry food with cake. Ditto, all grazing sheep. Go to the 
cake or corn merchant, and make the best terms you can with your landlord," 
Mr. J. H. Risdon, Washford, Taunton, Somerset : 
"1. The soil is partly sand (some sharp) and partly loam, on red marl, 
climate is good. 
" 2. The summer of 1885 was very dry, and the autumn good and growing. 
Winter frosty and open. Spring late, wet, and very cold. 
" 3. Disastrous. 
" 4. Used much less succulent food and more corn and cake than usual. 
" 7. I require no shelter for sheep, except the hedges, which are kept shorn. 
" 9. To the greatest extent. 
" 10. By keeping in a good season a rick of hay." 
Mr. R. V. Langdon, Brompton Ralph, Somerset : 
" 1. Soil, light and heavy 'Eag,' very thin in places. Climate moist, being 
contiguous and joined on to the Brendon Hills. 
" 2. Summer of 1885 very dry. Crops of corn and hay moderately good 
and very well harvested, but no keep on the grass-land after the spring. The 
spring of 1886 was late, entailing extra expense." * 
Mr. James A. Caird, Northbrook, Micheldever, Hants : 
" 1. Centrally in Hampshire. Chalk formation. From 200 to 500 feet 
above the sea. Averajje rainfall 33 inches. The soil varies from the rather 
sticky clay that is found in places on the chalk, to the very thinnest covering 
of earth of the poorest quality that can be imagined ; but the average may be 
said to be a fair chalk soil. Climate rather moist; no great extremes of heat 
and cold. 
" 2. Summer very dry and sunny, but not warm. Rainfall for June, July, 
and August only 2'89 inches. September wet and cold. October and 
November wet and rather mild. December, early part of the month, hard 
frost, latter part open weather. Januarj% I'^ebruary, and March, persistent 
cold, frost almost every night, but never intense, till the montli of March. 
"3. The earliest sown turnips and swedes and the mangolds survived the 
