The Farm Prize Competition of 1890. 
797 
six and nine acres. The largest is 8a. 3r. 7p. The length of 
fences dividing these fields (exclusive of 9^ miles of boundary 
and road fences) is 10 miles. The gates number 200, and as 
they cost, with their ironwork, 15s. apiece, to say nothing of the 
posts or pillars of masonry ab each side, their erection and main- 
tenance locks up capital which might be more usefully applied 
elsewhere. The present tenants scored some points in the com- 
petition because of the very efficient way in which every gate on 
the farm was hung and attended to. Not a single one was found 
which did not open and shut most freely. Mr. Hill has during 
his tenancy removed 2£ miles of old banks, averaging five to six 
feet in width, and he might continue the work with advantage. 
The buildings of the farm, unlike most others on the Com- 
missioners' estates, lie scattered, and somewhat inconveniently, the 
result, doubtless, of three or more farms being thrown into one. 
Some useful sheds have been erected within recent years. 
The arable land is cropped mainly on the following rotation, 
viz. : — First year roots, second barley or oats, third roots, fourth 
wheat or barley, fifth seeds — left down four or five years. Thus 
about thirty acres are laid down each year, and the same 
extent of lea broken up. As there is no large town near, from 
which supplies of stable and other dung can be drawn to supple- 
ment the home production, Mr. Hill has to be less lavish with 
the latter than his two more successful competitors can afford to 
be. His farmyard dung is applied mainly to the mangel crop, 
and to a field of old meadow grass which is mown yearly. The 
fertility of the other land has, therefore, to be maintained by 
dressings of artificial manure and lime, and by a liberal con- 
sumption of corn and cake by sheep fed on the turnip and other 
crops. The average expenditure for manure and feeding stuffs 
purchased during the last four years has been 3661. per annum, 
in addition to the value of home-grown corn consumed. 
The result of this management, as testified by the various 
crops of corn, grass, and roots, is eminently satisfactory, and 
proves that fertility can be maintained if the ordinary resources 
at command of all farmers are judiciously applied. This was 
specially noticeable in the unusual growth and abundance of 
herbage in the majority of the grass fields on the Judges' second 
visit in June. Field after field is described in their books as 
" very full of grass," even where the land was said to have been 
eaten bare earlier in the spring. Indeed, in some instances the 
question cropped up whether or not certain fields would not have 
been better mown than grazed, so thick and forward was the 
herbage in them, and so plentiful was the grass in the other 
pastures all over the farm. This abundance of grass was all the 
