The Winter of 1885-86. 
405 
" 4. No difficulty in providing food ; turnips and mangolds pulped and 
used with chafied straw, &c. 
" 5. Could not get them here early, too far north. 
" 6. No experience of ensilage. Do not require any. 
" 7. During lambing time I had to keep all my ewes and lambs under 
cover ; my feeding sheep eating turnips on the land did not require any. 
"9. No doubt the partial failure of the root crops throughout England 
and Scotland had a great deal to do with the low price of young sheep in the 
autumn. The depression in trade, and the tenant-farmers' capital gradually 
diminishing, also helped to keep prices low. 
"10. To pay great attention to the cultivation of root crops; to sow 
early ; have the land fine, and put plenty of the best tillages into it ; and 
when you have grown a good crop, take care to have it properly stored 
before the frost spoils it." 
Mr. John Coleman (agent for Lady Ashton), The Mount, 
York: 
" 1. The land I managed for Lady Ashton is situated at Sherburn, South 
Milford, West Eiding of Yorkshire. Climate equable, rainfall moderate, 
averaging about 26 inches. Soil generally strong clay, and flat; much 
affected by wet seasons, as the outfalls are sluggish. The area is about 
201 acres, of which 73 acres are permanent grass, much of it requiring 
additional drainage, which is being carried out. 
"2. The summer of 1885 was fairly favourable to the cereal crops and 
grass. The autumn was too wet for our country, although what wheat we 
had was well sown ; but the long cold winter and spring, together with heavy 
downfalls of snow or rain, caused a serious loss of plant, and the prospects are 
now wretchedly bad. The spring of 1886 was one of the most backward and 
trying in a long experience. 
" 3. On such land as above, root crops are always difficult to grow, and 
the long period of dry weather in the summer was prejudicial. The start was 
late, and the plants were thin on the ground and grew very slowly until 
late in the autumn, when they mended a good deal, but never realised more 
than half a good crop. We had about 10 acres, partly swedes and mangolds 
mixed, and the rest swedes; and the yield did not exceed from 8 to 9 tons 
l^er acre, besides 4 or 5 cartloads of yellow turnips. 
" 4. We had thirty-two head of bullocks, coming two years, and eight 
cows and calves, six cart-horses, and a few pigs. The bullocks had been 
summered on the grass-land, with 2 lbs. a head daily of decorticated cotton- 
cake, and had done extremely well, partly owing to the artificial food and 
the improvement in the herbage, due to about 40 acres of the land having 
been dressed in spring with a mixture of artificials, consisting of i cwt. 
steamed bone-fiour, j cwt. of nitrate of soda, and 2 cwt. of superphosphate 
(26 per cent.), costing 17s. 7 id. per acre. Our winter food comprised a small 
allowance of pulped roots with chaff, composed of hay and straw, and an 
allowance of meal, comprising decorticated cotton-cake, Indian corn, barley- 
meal, locust-beans, and 10 per cent, of fenugreek seed, and a small quantity 
of linseed-cake. 
" 5. The winter had no efifect one way or the other, as strong land is not 
suitable for obtaining green crops in spring. We depended up to grass time 
upon our pulped roots, &c., as above, and by that time our bullocks were fit 
tor market. 
"6. None. 
" 7. None whatever. I should say that, when practicable, shelter should 
be provided. Animals protected from violent changes of weather thrive more 
quickly. 
