542 Report on the Farm Prize Competition in 
back again upon tliem. It is essential that the bulbs do 
not touch, nor be too much buried under the soil, but just so 
deeply only that their crowns be fully covered. They are 
ploughed out again for use, when another ingenious invention 
of Mr. Machin's, which is attached to the plough, levels down 
the furrow after the turnips are lifted out to make all safe for 
the sheep. The writer, although hailing from a county not 
entirely innocent of swede-growing, will not easily forget seeing 
this operation in practice some days into May, and the turnips 
coming out juicy, heavy, and fresh as when they were put in, 
and after a little root-trimming clean enough for a drawing- 
room. One-third of the roots are drawn for the bullocks in the 
yards, and the others are consumed on the land by sheep. 
Barley follows, and a splendid crop of it was shown to the 
Judges in July, as might well be exjDected after such a pre- 
paration as has been described. Barley is sown successfully as 
late as May 14, and five to six quarters per acre are looked 
for in favourable years. If a few acres of roots are folded after 
that date vetches follow, with seed sown amongst them to keep 
the land in the same course. 
The awnless barley is usually grown, as it stands well, and 
is more inclined to a bolder berry than many other kinds. The 
sample upon this light land is generally too thin to tempt the 
maltsters greatly, and therefore a large portion of it, as well as of 
the oats, are mostly used for home feeding. 
Seeds, 1^ peck English and Italian ryegrass, 10 lbs. white 
clover and cow-grass, and a little sheep's-parsley, are sown in the 
barley, and left down for a second year. It does not pay to leave 
them down longer, as they so much deteriorate and become 
choked with the old forest grass, which is of no feeding value 
and apparently indigenous to the soil. Upon the two years 
ley the clovers had died out, and upon the " set," which was 
seeded with the barley of 1887, they had been killed by the 
drought, so that very little but ryegrass was left in either 
case. One field only of the first year's seeds is mown yearly, 
and none of the second. 
Wheat or oats unmanured follow the second year's seeds, 
and neither of these crops in the present year is a very heavy 
one. The spring had been too dry for the oats, which were 
sown upon exceedingly poor fields of land, the worst pro- 
bably of the farm. What was left of the wheat looked 
vigorous enough, but it had suffered seriously in plant, in 
common with almost all the rest seen upon our rounds, 
particmlarly upon the lighter soils. One field was mended with 
barley, which promised, though late, to be very fairly successful. 
