510 . Report on the Fa/rm Prize Competition in 
would there be much advantage in a closer inspection at the 
dead season. It is usually quite enough to yield very useful 
preliminary indications of the master and his skill. 
The second visit was begun by the reporting Judge on the 
4th of May, and all the Judges started for the third inspection 
on the 25th of June. 
Before describing in detail the management of the compet- 
ing farms, the writer proposes to follow recent precedents in 
giving a brief and general sketch of the leading features of 
agricultural interest which characterise the two whole counties 
open to the competition. 
Lincolnshire. 
Lincolnshire has been described griculturally speaking, 
the premier county of England. It certainly possesses many 
natural advantages of a high order, which on the whole have 
been turned to first-rate account. The great diversity of soil 
under plough or in grass throughout the large area of the 
county, and the exceptionally fertile character of so much of it, 
have led to equal variety in its distribution amongst owners and 
occupiers. All vexed questions of large versus small estates or 
holdings have here had a free and favourable field for their solu- 
tion. That is to say, they have been very much left to settle 
themselves by the only really sound and economical process of 
natural selection, which, despite its simplicity, may be safely 
trusted to work for the best in the long run. 
Thus there are the usual large estates with their large farms 
where the land is of a character to attract men of capital and 
skill, and to yield the safest return from treatment on a large 
scale ; whilst the small cultivators, as owners or occupiers, have 
chiefly settled upon the richer but less easily cultivated soil, 
where expensive artificial stimulants are not so essential to the 
production of good crops, and where labour is the principal 
investment required. 
But whether in large holdings or in small, both classes 
have been distinguished for excellence of cultivation, and for 
the character of the live stock upon them. 
It may be that here and there a less satisfactory picture has 
just now to be acknowledged, but if so the shadow may be 
traced with little difficulty to the passage of those clouds of 
recent years which have more or less frowned upon us all. No- 
where has the trouble been more felt than upon the wheat- 
f^rowing soils of the smaller farmers, who, on the whole, may 
not bo as well armed as the larger farmers are with the advan- 
