616 
Report on the Farm-Prize Competition 
\ alley as it was in the eastern counties, or even as far south as 
the neighbourhood of London. 
The soil is most of it light and easily worked, and being 
much of it upon gravel, the grass comes early in the spring. 
This warmth of soil has, however, its disadvantages in such a 
season as that of 1887, as was sufficiently evidenced when the 
Judges made their final inspection in the first week of July. 
The farm-house, which is new, is excellent, and the view 
from it looking over the well-wooded Tyne, with the Durham 
hills in the distance, is very pleasing. There is a nice flower- 
garden in the front, and a good kitchen-garden behind the 
house. These gardens were very neat, and well cared for. 
Immediately behind the house are the farm-buildings, which 
are large, and very substantially built. They were originally 
constructed for the use of a former occupant of the farm, ^Ir. 
Atkinson, who was a famous Shorthorn breeder, and they are 
better suited for that purpose than for ]\Ir. Lyall's business. 
They are too much cut up into separate boxes to be economically 
attended to. They are, however, so good in many respects that 
it seems almost censorious to find fault with them. 
The barn has a fixed threshing-machine, worked by a ten- 
horse power steam-engine, which also drives a pair of mill- 
stones, a cake-breaker, and a chaff-cutter. There is a large straw- 
barn, with granary above, and all the ordinary farm-buildings 
on a liberal scale. Something like one hundred head of cattle 
can be wintered in these buildings and the enclosed yards. 
The farmer of these days uses a much greater number of imple- 
ments than those of former times, and Mr. Lyall, finding that 
he had not sufficient room for his, has recently built a shed for 
that purpose at his own expense. He has also built a lambing 
yard, and constructed a sheep-dipping tank. 
There are eight labourers' cottages, in two blocks of four each. 
These are very superior to the ordinary Northumbrian cottages. 
They have a living room 16 X 16, with a recessed cupboard, a 
small scullery, a pantry, and two bedrooms in the upper story. 
Of course there was the family bed in the living room, opposite 
to a large kitchen range, in which a big fire seems *to burn 
winter and summer. The cottages which we entered were well 
furnished and scrupulously clean. In one of them we spied, among 
other books, an odd number of the Royal Agricultural Society's 
' Journal ' ; but as the cottager was not present, we did not 
discover how it came there. 
The soil is described as chiefly light on gravel ; it is not 
deep, and it will bear very liberal manuring. In the south- 
east angle of the farm are some large park-like pastures of "fair 
quality and well watered, and the house is surrounded on all 
