504 Report on the Liverpool Prize-Farm Competition, 1877 — 
version at home. These two circumstances convert the farm into 
little other than a market-garden, even though it be agricultural 
crops exclusively — as wheat and oats, and clover, turnips, and 
potatoes — that are grown upon it, for the whole produce goes 
straight to market; unless, indeed, the landowner insists, against 
his own interest, on the maintenance of rules which were made 
for altogether different circumstances. Even on dairy and 
stock farms these two circumstances also exert a very obvious 
influence. Early potatoes, grown for immediate sale, and large 
farm-gardens, full of marketable produce, receive exceptional 
attention. Milk and butter, too, take the place of the ordinary 
cheese-produce of the Cheshire dairy, and thus the ordinary 
agricultural management is altogether upset.* 
The climate and soils of a district so large as the counties of 
Lancashire, Cheshire, Flint, and Denbighshire, necessarily vary 
between wide limits. The farms upon our list lie fully two degrees 
of latitude apart, and include 700 feet of difference of elevation. 
They lie, too, on subsoils as various as the sands and marls of 
the New Red Sandstone, the clays and sandstones of the coal 
measures, and the clay-slate of the Cambrian system. Over all, 
however, there is one condition which generally obtains. The 
climate and the soil together lend themselves admirably to the 
growth of " artificial " grasses ; and everywhere bone-dust as an 
application, at the rate of 8 or 10 cwts. per acre, possesses an 
efficacy as manure, especially on grass-lands, unknown to the 
eastern and southern counties of England. The early establish- 
ment and long-continuance of sown grasses is probably the 
most characteristic and influential of all the agricultural features 
of the district. Fields sown down three to six years ago already 
have all the appearance of permanent grass-lands, and, retaining 
their excellence much longer — arriving, indeed, much sooner at 
that period in the history of a new grass-field, when, under 
good management, it begins continually to improve — there is no 
temptation to plough more than a comparatively small portion 
of a farm ; all, or nearly all, of which may, nevertheless, be 
within the power of the tenant to cultivate just as he may choose. 
This, it will be seen, in the case of many of the farms to be de- 
scribed, is one of the most influential of all the circumstances on 
which the agriculture of the district depends. I may add, as 
regards the arable portion of the farms, that the whole of the 
district seems also adapted to the growth of swedes, and the 
Judges found generally excellent crops of this root. 
I now proceed to the description of the successful farms. 
* The abundant supply of cheap feeding-stuffs in the great port of Liverpool, 
such as Indian corn, cotton-cakes, &c, leads to their being very largely used in 
this district ; and to the consequent increase of its fertility. 
