510 Report on the Warwickshire Farm-Prize Competition^ 1876. 
]Me. Lane's Fabm. 
Second Prize Farm. 
Broom Court, Mr. Lane's farm, and the property of Mr. J. A. 
Sidebottom, of !Millbrook House, Hadfield, Manchester, is 
situated very near the south-western border of the county, where 
it abuts upon Worcestershire, and is about 4 miles south of 
Alcester, and 10 miles west of Stratford-on-Avon. It is inter- 
sected from west to east by the road leading from the village 
of Bidford to that of Salford Priors, at which place, and at a 
distance of about a mile and a quarter from Broom Court, there 
is a station on the Birmingham, Evesham, and Ashchurqh 
branch of the Midland Railway. The small river Arrow (a 
tributary of the Avon) forms the western boundary of the farm ; 
and the Avon itself bounds it on the south, and separates it 
from Worcestershire. 
The farm consists of 200 acres of arable land and 180 acres 
of pasture. The plough land occupies the ridge and slopes, both 
east and west, of a gentle elevation, which rises from the banks 
of the Arrow, and runs almost due north and south, following the 
course of that stream. The grass land consists of the meadows 
immediately adjoining the river, and also of some useful upland 
pasture in the vicinity of the house, which is placed nearly at 
the northern end of the occupation. The farm is compact and 
manageable, the arable lands (with the exception of two fields 
at the back of the residence) being entirely contiguous, and 
enjoying the advantage of a capital farm road, which, running 
along the crown of the above-mentioned ridge, divides the 
major portion of the plough land into two pretty equal moieties; 
and commands, from its elevation, not only a complete surve}' 
of the lands which form its slopes (and indeed of the whole 
farm), but also a pleasing panorama of the country for many 
miles round ; bounded in a westerly direction by the Bredon, 
Cotswold, and other Worcestershire hills, including the Malvern 
range in the dim distance. 
The farm is upon the New Red Sandstone formation, and 
the land mostly consists of a brown gravelly loam, varying in 
depth and quality ; tolerably easy of culture, and liable, Irom 
its gravelly character, to suffer somewhat in periods of pro- 
tracted drought. A very small portion is of a somewhat stiffer 
sort, being of the " marly" nature common to the formation ; and, 
owing to its distinct character, it is often planted with beans, 
out of course, instead of roots, it being difficult, except in very 
favourable seasons, to obtain a plant of the latter. The meadows 
are subject to floods (about 20 acres of hay were swept away in 
