Report on the Warwicksliirc Farm-Prize Competitiuiiy lb 7 6. 489 
the paucity of entries presented a significant contrast to those 
<)t" the neighbouring county of Oxford, where in 1870 twenty-one 
farms competed ; and indeed to any subsequent competition 
under the auspices of the Society. 
It is, perhaps, not difficult to conjecture some of the reasons 
Jor this notable falling ofT. Independent of the serious dis- 
arrangements which difficulties in regard to labour have entailed 
upon the farmer during the last four years, the season of 1875 
>\ as (at least in the Midland Counties) one of the most trying 
vvith which he has had to cope, perhaps, during the present cen- 
tury ; and it may well be that many excellent agriculturists were 
deterred from exhibiting their occupations by the unhappy 
appearance which too many of them presented after a season of 
such unparalleled difficulty. 
The Judges, having received their instructions, decided to 
make their first survey early in November, to enable them to 
observe the system of stock-feeding pursued on each farm. With 
this object they met at Leamington on the evening of the 9th of 
that month, and on the three following days made a thorough 
inspection of the five farms enumerated below. This visit was, 
unfortunately, timed with one of those recurring cataclysms 
which distinguished the season, and our inspection was carried 
out with some little difficulty, owing to the sodden condition of 
some of the land, which we were assured by each competitor, in 
turn, was unequalled in his experience. The subsequent visits 
were paid in the second week in May, when all the farms 
•were carefully looked over, and on the 18th and 19th days 
a{ July, in the week of the Birmingham Show, when the three 
prize-farms were again subjected to a minute scrutiny. The 
weather on each of these occasions presented a remarkable 
contrast to that of the autumn visit ; ihat of May being dis- 
tinguished by cloudless skies and great dryness of atmosphere, 
and that of July by a glowing temperature which will long be 
remembered by the visitors to the Showyard ^at Birmingham. 
The farm-work in November was very much in arrear, only one 
piece of wheat having been planted on the whole of the in- 
spected farms ; and sheep penned on turnips up to their bellies 
in mud did not look at their best, or augur very favourably for 
the future crop. In May, however, all was changed ; the wheat, 
though backward, was looking fairly ; but much barley was 
only just peeping from the ground, which on some descriptions 
of land had .evidently been reduced with infinite trouble. But 
the extraordinary character of the season was displayed at our 
July visit, when the grain-crops were already yellowing for 
.harvest, and when, notwithstanding the vicissitudes of the year. 
