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XIV. — On the Management of a Home Farm. By T. Bowick. 
Prize Essay. 
Home, park, or demesne farms, vary in character, extent, 
and in the objects which they seek to attain, but they have, 
generally speaking, certain common features which distinguish 
them from those leased to a tenant. The ducal establish- 
ment, with its couple of thousand acres of pasture and arable, 
its flocks and its herds and its highly finished homestead, and 
the few acres of lawn or pasture which the retired tradesman has 
attached to his villa for the supply of rich Alderney milk, have 
the same leading object — viz., personal accommodation : an end 
too often purchased at a high rate, although instances are 
numerous, and on the increase, in which commercial considera- 
tions are thoroughly satisfied ; while the {a.\v prestige <in({ example 
" how they do things at the Hall " is thoroughly kept up. In such 
cases a valuer's rent is placed on the acres in hand, and a strict 
unvarnished account shows what is reallv doing in each depart- 
ment. Some of these home farms have proved of great use to 
the agricultural world. Who can tell how much agriculture 
owes to the stimulus imparted in former days by the Woburn or 
Holkham gatherings ? Have not Tortworth, Althorp, and other 
places done much for the Shorthorn, Goodwood for the South- 
down, and Kinnaird Castle for the excellent Polled Angus? 
Other cases there have no doubt been, where, from careless 
management and untidiness, or from the opposite extreme of 
lavish and improvident expenditure, " his Lordship's farming " 
has only proved a by-word and an example to be avoided. 
In these notes we shall not refer either to the one extreme or 
the other of this wide subject. Our remarks must first be 
directed to — 
1. The Buildings and Appurtenances. 
These will, of course, be in proportion to the extent of the occu- 
pation. Park farms, at least in England, have usually a large 
breadth of grass-land attached, and the quantity of arable is often 
proportionately small. Hence the range of premises is naturally 
not so extensive as where roots and corn more abound. Model 
homesteads, &c., although to be met with in most counties, are 
not essential to the system. They are all A^ery well in their 
way ; but if everything be not up to the same mark, if repairs be 
in arrear, or the stock inferior, there is a sense of incongruity 
which mars the effect. Besides which, if the private homestead 
be on a magnificent scale, whilst elsewhere there are still signs 
of neglect, the tenants on the property cannot but be unfavourably 
