The Farm-Prize Competition, 1884. 
553 
only for a week, gradually reduced and replaced by skim- 
milk, meal, and a little spice. The milk is scalded, and given 
lukewarm. Between October and May, 45 calves were reared. 
Most of them were bought, averaging 355. each. When I 
add that Mrs. Hardeman has seven young children, the eldest 
only twelve, and keeps everything going, it will be apparent 
that " her price is above rubies." 
The farm is chiefly on gravel, and much of the grass is good, 
but it lies very wide, and certainly is not cheap. The buildings 
are badly arranged as to economy of labour, but are useful and 
roomy. The cow-houses at our second visit were carefully white- 
washed, and the woodwork was gas-tarred. The liquid manure 
from the yards is conveyed a great distance by iron pipes into 
a meadow, and any good it does is very inadequate to the cost 
of conveyance ; but the pipes can be utilised for supplying 
water from a small brook, and thus the meadow can be par- 
tially irrigated, which is at times of material use. The outlay 
would have sufficed to cover over the yard from whence the 
liquid manure is supplied. A mixed herd of Herefords and 
milk-cows are kept, and the land is very heavily stocked. Thus 
at our first visit we found — 
7 Hereford cows, some with registered pedigrees, fed on 
pulped swedes and chopped straw ; they are tied up, 
with exercise daily for an nour or two. 
14 milk-cows, for butter and rearing. 
8 yearling Shorthorn steers, having pulped roots and 
chop, and long straw. 
1 three-year-old Shorthorn bull. 
12 calves, from 6 to 10 months old, from dairy cows. 
4 pedigree Hereford calves. 
13 rearing calves. 
59 total. 
The management of the Herefords is that which generally 
prevails throughout the district. The calves run with their 
dams, and consume all the produce. 
At the time of our first visit the butter was sold by contract 
in London at 15c?. a pound, Mr. Hardeman finding crates and 
paying carriage. It was estimated that the produce averaged 
19/. per cow. 
By butter .... £12 
„ skim-milk ... 5 
„ calf 2 
£19 
2 0 2 
