554 
Rejwrt on the Farm Prize ComfetUion in 
ingly low. The crop of roots was extraordinarily heavy, when 
in many other counties there was a very small one or none at 
all. Both mutton and beef were scarce, and sold well when the 
stock went out. It should be stated too that the great weight 
of roots was not, as is so often the case, peculiar to one or two 
fields, but was common to the whole farm. 
Both the Messrs. Machin have, in an extraordinary degree, 
that knowledge of stock and of the market which is essential 
to the success of their particular system, and if they are not 
exactly what some would call scientific farmers, they have so far 
gone to the bottom of things that it might puzzle some very 
keen professors to suggest a profitable improvement. 
As an instance of their union of practice with science, or, as 
the latter word simply means, with knowledge, it may be in- 
structive to give their own account of their reasons for changing 
the four-course rotation of cropping, which they practised some 
fourteen years ago, to the five-course — or two years' seeds — 
which they practise now. In the first place it is because turnips, 
and particularly swedes, every four years was found to be too 
often for the capacity of the land. Next because the greater 
quantity of fibrous turf — organic matter perhaps the chemists 
would call it — which came up with the two years' ley helps such 
light land to retain moisture, as well as nourishes every descrip- 
tion of crop. Again, a less acreage of com is preferred because 
the land either does not grow full crops of it, or grows them 
of poor quality, whilst it does grow all green crops well, and 
the excess of grass does greatly assist in keeping down the 
annuals, so that less weeds are found on the fallows than there 
used to be with more frequent ploughings. Wheat is scarcely 
worth growing at all at present prices on such land. By delay- 
ing the corn crop another year much better crops are grown, 
and the good ofiices of the manure merchant, which may be 
needful enough elsewhere, and upon land requiring a difierent 
system, are held very much at a discount. And lastly, though 
by no means least, the labour bill is greatly reduced by the 
change from the four- to the five-course shift. 
It may also be pointed out that when artificial manures are 
used — which is almost entirely upon roots — the Messrs. Machin 
select them scientifically, that is to say, they discard what they 
do not want, and yet that which is so omitted is just what would 
first of all be recommended to them if they took the manufac- 
turer's advice — namely, phosphates in some form or other. 
Indeed, one of the most curious facts about such wonderful 
roots on land of this character is that they were grown entirely 
without artificially supplied phosphates, all land mostly requir- 
