Report on the Farm- Prize Competition 1886. 637 
number will not be considered too many. They are summered 
on green food in the yards, and rarely go to pasture. 
Poultry. — The receipts from this source are somewhat con- 
siderable : 300 chickens and 70 turkeys, geese, and ducks are 
reared and sold annually. 
Sheep. — With reference to the sheep stock, Mr. Turner has set 
himself the rather difficult task of keeping a permanent breeding 
flock of ewes on a clay-land farm. He patronises the breed for 
which the Bury district has long been famous, the Improved 
Suffolk. 
The old Suffolk sheep were within his recollection " sharper 
in the face and thinner in the body " than the breed now 
existent. Judicious crossing has resulted in producing an 
altogether thicker and more massive animal, without losing the 
characteristic black face and legs. 
He puts 170 of these ewes annually to the rams, turning in 
the latter, 3 in number, about the 11th of October. They 
are run on the stubbles during the day and folded on mustard 
at night till the middle of November, when they are folded on 
swedes with all the pea-straw chaff they will consume. This 
folding goes on until lambing time, when they are put into the 
yard at night, and have a small quantity of mangolds, and a 
little cake and hay chaff — " In fact," says JNIr. Turner, " we 
keep them well all through lambing." Rye is, as a rule, fit for 
stocking by the last week in April, on which and the grass 
pastures they are then folded — mangolds, cake, and ha}- being 
still continued. When the rye is finished they are folded on 
the clover layers, the lambs running forward and getting linseed- 
cake, split-peas, and lentils. The lambs are weaned and sold at 
the end of June, and shearlings are bought to make up for ewes 
drafted. This year the produce was about lamb for ewe — not 
a great increase, certainly ; but Mr. Turner's average is equal to 
that of some other competitors who are breeders on soils much 
better adapted for sheep. As already noted, 30 acres of this 
j farm is a friable porous soil, and he arranges so that one-fourth 
I of this is yearly in roots, and on them he folds his ewes during 
the spring months. All the heavy land to be sown with corn 
he endeavours to have ploughed before January is out. 
The working staff and the wages are as follows : — 
2 horsemen, at 12s. each per week. 
1 lad, also with horses, at 75. per week. 
1 shepherd, at 10s. per week. 
4 labourers, at 10s. each per week. 
2 boys, at 4s. each per week. 
In addition, they have the usual 6/. each for harvest. 
