608 
Report on the Farm-Prize Competition 
The main business of the farm is the production of meat, 
and all the Cattle and Sheep are sold off fat. Mr. Angus has for 
many years regularly supplied a butcher with Beef and Mutton, 
which has all been sold by weight — the practice being for the 
butcher to come once a fortnight to choose the supply for the 
next two weeks, and to pay for those last drawn. The price 
per stone having been agreed upon, the weighing of the animals 
has been left to the butcher. This system has been followed 
until the present summer, when the butcher retired from busi- 
ness, and Mr. Angus had to look for a market at a very 
unfortunate period of excessively low prices. 
To keep up a constant supply of fat animals would tax the 
resources of most farmers, and no small amount of skill and 
judgment has been shown in accomplishing the feat. 
About seven score breeding ewes are kept on the farm. 
These are pure half-bred ewes. The tups used are Border 
Leicesters and Oxford Downs of Mr. John Treadwell's well- 
known flock. The greater part of the lambs are sold fat, and 
for this purpose those by the Oxford Down are preferred by 
the butcher, though Mr. Angus thinks the produce of the 
Leicesters equally good in every respect. Many of the ewes are 
fattened off every year, the flock being kept up to its number 
by the purchase of about 30 gimmers and 30 four-year-old ewes 
every year. In the autumn, lambs from the north are bought 
in ; but they have to be wintered elsewhere. They are sent 
out in November ; and last year they cost 5c?. a head a 
week, besides an allowance of ^ lb. of cake a-day. They 
return in February, and are folded on grass, where they get 
cut turnips and cake, and they go away fat in the spring and 
summer. 
With the exception of four dairy Cows, which are kept for the 
purpose of supplying the house and the labourers' families with 
milk and butter, no breeding of Cattle is attempted. Two-year- 
old steers and heifers (chiefly Irish) are bought from time to 
time at Carlisle or Stagshaw Bank* or elsewhere, and feeding 
is carried on throughout the year — all the forward ' animals 
erettin? a liberal allowance of cake when at grass. 
Our first visit to IMatfen was made on the 15th of December, 
on one of the wettest and roughest days of a very stormy period. 
We started from Newcastle before daylight, and we seemed to 
be driving for an interminable time over the heaviest of roads, 
up hill and down hill, through storms of snow, and rain, and 
hail. Our driver took us some miles out of the way, and 
* Sis fairs are hold durinj: the year on a common about four miles from 
Ht-xbdni and about the same distance from Matfcn. 
