582 Report on the Farm Prize Competition in 
now productive district, witli its highly cultivated fields, enclosed 
by the trimmest of blackthorn hedges, without a thought of the 
marvellous revolution which had been effected there, and much 
of it even within living memory. A part of Sherwood Forest 
was cleared for cultivation in the year 1600, but by far the 
greater portion was enclosed long afterwards and down to the 
beginning of the present century, A few picturesque bits of it 
even yet remain within the noble grounds of Welbeck, Worksop, 
and Clumber, and these three seats, almost in touch of each 
other, form a cluster of magnificent country seats and surround- 
ings which even England can scarcely elsewhere rival. 
The General System of Farming in Nottinghamshire. 
The western division of Nottinghamshire, including the 
whole of the light and sandy forest district, as well as the 
narrow stripe of still poorer magnesian limestone land bordering 
on Derbyshire, is let for the most part in large holdings as com- 
pared with the rest of the county. Thus we have here again 
the worst land in the larger occupations, and so well farmed as 
to offer a good example to the smaller holders, if they need it, 
which I understand from my colleagues, the Judges in Classes 
II. and III., they do not. The smaller farmers have, however, 
the advantages not only of better land, but also of by far the 
larger share of the permanent grass of the county, if that is the 
saving clause in the situation which it is frequently said to be. 
The chief feature of the farming of the lighter soils, as of 
some others which the Judges had an opportunity of seeing, is 
the extraordinary expenditure of labour, skill, and capital upon 
the cultivation of the root crop, and its remarkable success. 
Curiously enough too, after Lincoln experiences, the particular 
root which was considered worthy of all this effort was the 
hardy and nutritious swede, to the almost entire exclusion of 
the softer turnip. The Judges felt that it would be difficult 
to forecast whether the envy or the astonishment of the farmers 
of the southern counties, who were put to such terrible shifts by 
the loss of their roots in 1887, would have been the more excited 
to find, as we found, field after field, and farm after farm, with 
the most magnificent swedes upon them ; yet this was our 
pleasant surprise. They were clear in skin, superb in quality, 
marvellously level in size, touching almost in places as they 
stood in the rows, and this in some cases upon land looking 
dear at 10s. per acre rent ! 
It was the opinion of Mr. Lowe, to whose work on Notting- 
hamshire Agriculture, written many years ago, the writer is 
