534 Report on the Fa/rm Prize Competition in 
food has probably been underestimated by farmers generally, and 
it is pleasant to know that the scientific view is so satisfactorily 
supported by practical experience. The Notts farmer has also 
a well-founded faith in the feeding value of oats for almost all 
classes of stock. Skegs, though now perhaps going out of 
fashion, is a crop which has long been grown — sometimes very 
largely grown — -in the county, and so far as the writer knows 
is quite peculiar to it. Skegs are very thin and light oats, not 
perhaps greatly removed from wild ones. They are sown upon 
the worst lands, for which they are — or were — supposed to be 
more adapted than better varieties, a larger bulk of both straw 
and corn being grown from them. It is usual to chaff the 
whole produce for horses as it comes from the stack without 
thrashing. 
Pigeons play a quite appreciable part in the economy of 
most Notts farms. The manure from the dovecote, in which 
very large quantities of birds are often kept, is looked upon 
as quite an important addition to the general supply, and a good 
sum is often made by the sale of the youngsters for shooting- 
matches. 
The farm buildings are better upon the stiffer soils than 
those for the same class of land in Lincolnshire, and there has 
been immense improvement in modern times in the farm-houses, 
cottages, and premises of Nottinghamshire generally, until now 
upon many estates they are quite exceptionally good and abun- 
dant. Dutch barns are not at all uncommon, and even covered 
yards are growing apace, of which some details will follow. 
Tenancies usually terminate at Lady-day, and leases are very 
uncommon. A provision of Tenant Right is, as has been said, 
common to both counties, and the capital of the outgoing man 
is adequately — perhaps excessively — provided for by Notting- 
hamshire custom, where the valuation on account of it mostly 
reaches the higher total of the two, viz. 21. to ol. per acre, 
whilst that of the lower is about 1/. to 21. The former amount 
is felt and said by some Notts farmers to have become a too 
serious drain upon the resources of the new-comer, who must 
be particularly well provided with capital to afford to allow so 
much of it to lie dead and useless until he quits the farm. 
The charge also appears to remain too steadily fixed, and to 
slide insufficiently, if at all, with the fluctuations of the tenant's 
other items of receipt and expenditure. It is on these accounts 
no doubt that the more moderate allowances of Lincoln custom, 
and the Agricultural Holdings Act, are, as was said, being 
gradually substituted. More expensive tillages for roots, pay- 
ment for manure left in the yards, and for hay and straw in any 
