630 Report on the Farm-Pi'ize Competition of 1886. 
to Hingham intersects the farm, affording convenient access to 
much of it. The lawn in front of the farmhouse with adjoining 
garden is very nicely kept, but the house and also the farm 
buildings are very primitive (the date on the walls of the 
former being 1627), and also in a bad state of repair. The farm 
is a very desirable one ; and judging from its immunity from 
weeds and general management, we should also so designate 
the tenant. 
The chief part of the surface soil is what is known in 
Norfolk as a " mixed soil," a term synonymous with a friable 
loam, but some of the fields approach a heavy or clay loam. 
Nearly the whole rests on the Boulder clay. Old clay pits 
abound on the farm, showing that in former times their contents 
must have been extensively used as a top dressing. 
The rotation of cropping followed is a four-course one, and 
the practice as regards manuring, <Scc., is so much the same as 
on those farms in this Class which we have already described, 
that to detail it would be a needless repetition. Perhaps the 
chief variation worth notice is the application of a part of the 
farmyard-manure to the swedes, instead of using it all for the 
wheat, beans, and mangold crops. This year Mr. Smith has 40 
acres under swedes, 24 of which had 14 loads of farmyai'd-manure 
per acre, and 16 received 5 cwts. per acre of bone superphosphate. 
This practice must necessitate smaller dressings of farmyard- 
manure for the wheat, but compensation is given in the form of 
nitrate of soda and salt, sown in the spring, at the rate of 6 
stones of the former and 12 stones of the latter per acre. 
In November a very fine field of young clover was noted, 
1 peck of clover and 1 peck of Italian rye-grass having been the 
liberal seeding for it. The root crops were excellent, and were 
being consumed by 10 fatting cattle and 29 two-year-olds in 
the yards, while 511 sheep, chiefly hoggets, were folded over 
them in the fields. One lot was penned on mangolds, a practice 
rather uncommon, indeed we had never seen it done before. 
Mr. Smith remarked that it enormously economised haulage. 
This was evident enough, but whether the consumption of 
mangolds at a date so early is economical, or a practice to be 
recommended, is a question on which opinions may vary. ; 
At our visit in May we found 600 hoggets fatting on the 
grass-land, these had been bought for the purpose ; the sheep 
we saw in November had been fattened and sold. 
Milch cows numbered three, but there were no grazing cattle. 
Carthorses were 10, and mares, foals, and colts one and two years 
old, in number 8. With regard to young horses, Mr. Smith 
states that he takes up and " gentles " all his colts at two 
years old, and at the following Michaelmas they work well, 
