Dairy and Stock Farms. 
Class IV— Stock and Dairy Farms over 200 Acres. 
Of the holdings in the fourth class of the Liverpool Farm 
Competition, including- stock and dairy farms over 200 acres 
in extent, two are distinctly foremost for the profit realised on 
them, and the quantity of food sold off them. One is a true 
Cheshire dairy farm, the other is remarkable for its yield of 
meat. Both of these farms come within the terms of the 
classification, and yet their management, directed to altogether 
different ends, is necessarily as different as possible. In both 
cases, indeed, it is energetic, intelligent, and successful ; in 
both the land is clean, well-cultivated, and productive ; the 
farm roads and premises are in good order, and the land carries 
a surprising quantity of stock ; and in both cases a liberal expen- 
diture in manures and cattle foods is incurred, a heavy rent is 
paid, and the labour of the farm is skilfully and economically 
directed. The nature of the produce, and the character, there- 
fore, of the management, are, however, so different, that it was 
found impossible to subject them to any such comparison as 
would place the one above the other on the scale of merit. The 
award has, therefore, placed them " equal first." 
Stapleford Hall, near Tarvin, the property of the Rev. Thomas 
France Hayhurst, of Davenham Rectory, Northwich, and for 
the last nine years in the occupation of Mr. John Lea, is 250 
acres in extent, of which about one-half is arable, only 70 acres, 
or thereabouts, however, being annually under the plough, the 
remainder being either permanent grass or grass laid down by 
the tenant, and from two to ten years old. It lies on the marl 
of the New Red Sandstone formation, or on the gravel beds by 
which that formation is in many places covered, and the soil is 
heavy and cool, or light and occasionally " burning," accord- 
ingly. The farm is held on a lease of 11 years, now nearly 
expired, which limits the extent of land that may be ploughed 
in any year, but places no other restriction on its cultivation. 
Mr. Lea takes an oat crop after his grass, ploughed up at from 
two to ten or twelve years old, according to its condition ; and 
this is followed by a fallow crop, mangolds, swedes, turnips, or 
beans. These again are followed by wheat, and this by oats, 
in which clover and grass seeds — 5 lbs. of red clover, and as 
much of mixed alsike and white clovers, with half a bushel of 
Italian, and as much of Scotch rye-grass, are sown. The farm- 
manure, with a dressing of artificial manure, is applied to the 
green and fallow crops. An occasional dressing of bone-dust, 
10 cwt. per acre, is put on the clover. Two or three cwt. of 
bone-meal is almost always applied to clovers in their second 
year, and the second grain crop sometimes receives a dressing 
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