Somersetshire Farm-Prize Competition, 1875. 545 
the outlay, and the tenant doing- the haulage. Much improve- 
ment remains to be effected, and there is every indication that 
thorough drainage would be the proper basis to start from. 
The pastures now throw up rushes to a considerable extent, 
and the hedge-row elm-trees, which are rather numerous, have a 
dwarfed and starved appearance. 
With the exception of two pastures contiguous to the pre- 
mises, the grass land is grazed and mown every alternate year. 
About 30 acres are top-dressed with farmyard-manure annually. 
The !Mendip pastures undergo the same treatment as the low- 
lands. 
Arahlc Land. — The arable part of the farm consists of 24 
acres, divided into small fields and intersected by large ditches. 
The usual course of cropping is : — 
Beans, j Barley, or Wheat seeded, 
Wheat, Seeds mown. 
Roots, I Seeds. 
This rotation, however, is not very rigorously carried out. 
Like the pastures, part of the arable land has been imper- 
fectly drained, and is still very wet. It is ploughed up in 
three-bout butts, and water-furrows are also cut to remove the 
surface-water into the open boundary ditches of the fields. 
Whether perfect under-drainage would obviate the necessity 
for these small high-backed lands and surface-water furrows, 
. entirely or not, it is difficult to speculate upon ; but the present 
conformation of the lands, the arrangement for the removal of 
surface-water, and the natural ditches, must do much to neu- 
tralize the effect of the under-drainage. Be this as it may, 
under any circumstances this tenacious soil would be most 
difficult to cultivate. 
Beans. — Winter beans only are grown ; they are sown early, 
and farmyardf-manure is always ploughed in before drilling 
them. 
Wheat. — The varieties grown are Nursery, Blue Ball, and 
April wheat. The autumn-sown sorts follow beans, and are 
drilled at the rate of about 2 bushels per acre towards the end of 
September. April wheat is sown towards the end of ^larch 
instead of barley, which is not often sown. Three bushels of 
seed per acre is sown at this season. 
Roots. — Mangolds and swedes are grown. The wheat stub- 
j bles are cleaned and cultivated directly after harvest, and the 
I ground is then bouted up into ridges with a common plough, 
f and left thus exposed for winter pulverization. In the spring,, 
j when sufficiently dry, it is worked down, then ridged up again, 
and farmyard-manure applied between the ridges, which are 
