5i0 The Berkshire Farm Prize Competition, 1882. 
On our second visit all the Judges met at Reading on the 
17th of April, and spent seven davs in going over the com- 
peting farms. The final examination began on the 28th of 
June, and was confined to those occupations we had selected 
from which to make our award. 
It would be impossible to write a report connected with the 
Agriculture of Berkshire without reference to the Royal Farms, 
occupied by her most gracious ^Majesty, who in this, as in all 
departments of life, exhibits such an illustrious example to 
her people. 
A retrospective view of the agriculture of our country shows 
what great advances have been made during the present century. 
The unpropitious seasons of the past few years have doubtless 
inflicted most serious loss on both owners and occupiers of land, 
and checked the spirit of enterprise in the cultivators of the soil. 
Yet periods of equally great agricultural depression have before 
this occurred and have been surmounted. 
First Prize, Class I. 
Mr. J. J. Hatcliff, The Priori/, Beech Hill, Reading. 
This farm contains 220 acres, viz., 140 arable, 65 grass, and' 
15 acres of wood ; it is held on lease from Eton College, and lies 
seven miles south of Reading. 
The soil is described in the certificate of entry as heav\', with 
a subsoil of clay and gravel ; from the geological map it appears 
to be on the London clay formation. 
On the north-west and south-west the farm is contiguous to 
the Strathfield Save estate, and on the south-east is bounded by 
" The Loddon slow, with verdant alders crowned," and towards 
which most of the land gradually inclines. 
Our first visit was on the 14th of December, when we found 
all the arable land ploughed and ridged up in lands of 8 feet 
3 inches wide, in thoroughly workmanlike style, the water- 
furrows neatly cut, the wheat sowing completed, and all outsides 
and corners cleaned and finished, while a most careful examina- 
tion failed to detect any couch ; indeed a garden could not well 
be more free from weeds or rubbish. 
The course of cropping adopted on that part of the farm nearest 
the homestead is as follows : wheat, barley, trifolium or mangold, 
sometimes varied thus ; wheat, beans, cabbage and turnips. 
At the far end and heavier portion of the farm the rotation is 
beans, wheat, oats or barley, trifolium or tares fed ofF. All 
the wheat is of the Rough Chaff variety, the drilling of which 
commenced on the 20th of October, and was completed the 9th of 
