590 
Report on the Prize-Farm Competition of 1886. 
once ploughed, and harrowed according to requirement. Seed 
drilled is 4 bushels per acre. Rolled with heavy three-horse 
roll. Twice horse-hoed and hand-weeded ; 59 acres sown, but 
one piece of 34 acres was part used for lamb feed when they 
■were weaned, and the rest mown and put into a silo just as it 
■was coming into ear, and a crop of white turnips taken after. 
The seeding for wheat is 9 pecks per acre, with cultivation 
much the same as for oats : 14 acres are in wheat this year, but 
this has not been irrigated for three years. 
The other part of the sewaged land, 140 acres, is in Italian 
rye-grass, treated as a permanent crop, and renovated annually 
with one bushel of seed per acre, sown over the whole. This 
has been seeded down at various times, Mr. Taylor's opinion 
being that the oldest layers are now the best. The sewage is 
turned on about the end of March and continued to the middle 
of October, being diverted from plot to plot as occasion requires, 
three men being constantly employed to attend to the irrigation. 
The grass is usually ready for feeding in April, and can be 
mown in May ; but as a rule it is fed by ewes and lambs, colts 
and neat stock, the best parts being reserved for the dairy cows 
as the earliest green food they can get. 
Stock of all descriptions do well on it ; but it is perhaps better 
adapted for grazing cattle and horses than for sheep, a great deal 
of attention from the shepherd being required to keep the latter 
sound in hoof. 
Iron hurdles on wheels are used to form the necessary 
separate enclosures, and the sewage grass is parted from the 
arable by a mile and half of iron fence, 5 feet 6 inches high, put 
up by the tenant. 
In connection with the sewaged land silage has proved a 
most serviceable adjunct. Before its introduction the surplus 
grass had to be made into hay, and only those practically 
experienced know the difficulty of converting highly-sewaged 
herbage into a condition to render it safe from combustion in 
the rick. On page 588 we have given an illustration of a silo 
erected by Mr. Taylor, and filled with chaffed sewage grass, 
which is found to be a most useful auxiliary winter food, alike 
for dairy cows, young stock, sheep, and horses, all of which eat 
it with avidity, and do well on it when mixed with corn, chaff, 
cut straw, or the tops and bottoms and outsides of haystacks. 
Another point worth noting is the disposal of the effluent 
water, which, falling to the valleys on the sides of the sewaged 
land, is caught and utilised for the growth of osiers, 12 acres 
having been planted for this purpose; and it may be truly said, 
that here " the fragments are gathered up and nothing is lost. 
52/. was received for osiers sold in February. 
