Continuous Corn Growing. 
43 
wheat, 73 acres of barley, and 29 acres of oats, were advertised 
for sale, straw as well as grain to be removed. An average of 
8Z. 8a'. per acre was obtained. Eight sales have since followed. 
Prices have varied with the season and the prospects of the 
market, but reached their highest in 1870, when the total average 
was 12/. 6s. 6(/., the wheat making 15/. 3s. lOr/. The sale 
account for 1874 is as follows : — 
£ s. f7. £ s. d. 
325 acres Wheat, averaging 10 17 7 = 3536 2 6 
64 „ Oats, averaging 9 15 0 = 624 0 0 
45 „ Clover cut and ricked, averaging 7 2 3 = 320 1 3 
.. „ Aftermath 3 5 9 = 147 18 9 
434 „ Averaging 10 13 3 = 4628 2 6 
The sales are held a week or ten days before the crops are 
ready for harvest. The neighbouring farmers are the principal 
buyers, and at the sale of 1874 one gentleman bought 54 acres. 
The purchasers usually superintend their own harvesting, thresh 
out their own grain, part of it from the field, most of it be- 
fore Christmas, and either consume the straw or forward it to 
London. Metropolitan dealers sometimes compete for the hay- 
Comfortably to accommodate the increasing company annually 
attracted to the sales, Mr. Prout, in 186G, provided over his 
cart-shed a spacious apartment in which a capital cold collation 
is served before the party proceed to the fields. The crops are 
set out in lots, usually varying from 5 to 15 acres, each lot being 
conspicuously marked by a pole, surmounted with a board, on 
which the printed number is affixed. Competition is generally 
good, and few lots fall below the moderate reserve placed upon 
them. Removal of number-boards or other mistakes seldom 
occur ; rarely is a purchase repudiated. Six months' credit is 
given ; the auctioneer Avill probably not object to its being 
recorded that he receives for his services 4 per cent., that he 
pays advertisements and meets bad debts, which are neither 
numerous nor serious. After harvest Mr. Prout has the pieces 
measured, and half this expense is paid by the purchasers. 
The total cost of the sale, including auctioneer's commission, 
lunch, &c., is set down at 200/. Although the " lot is at the 
risk of the purchaser at the fall of the hammer," Mr. Prout does 
not cease to take an interest in his fine crops. He finds 
reaping-machines and horses at moderate cost to cut down 
the thinner crops ; his barns and out-houses for five or six weeks 
are filled with Irish and other harvest-hands, sometimes to the 
number of 120, a large proportion of them from London. They 
generally prove themselves well-disposed steady work-people, 
and receive from 12s. to 15s. per acre for fagging, and about-43s. 
