Report on the Farm-Prize Competition of 1872. 279 
wide ; ditches and watercourses entirely neglected ; gateways with- 
out gates ; buildings low, dark, dilapidated, badly ventilated, and 
inadequate to the requirements of the farm ; live-stock ill-bred, 
ill-fed, and ill-looking ; farmyard untidy and almost impassable; 
surely these are not the marks of prize-farming ! And yet we 
feel bound to state that these shortcomings prevailed to a con- 
siderable extent on some of the farms. Perfection in every 
instance was by no means looked for ; but we did expect that 
farms held by men of some mark, — men recognised in their 
several neighbourhoods as pioneers in agriculture, — would, 
making all due allowance for the unfavourable season, have 
been found at least moderately clean. In this hope, however, 
we were in more than one instance grievously disappointed. 
Let it not be supposed, however, that our list contained all, 
or even a large proportion of, the farms in the district fit for 
exhibition. Far from it ; and it is to be regretted that some 
of the holdings passed through in our journeyings, bearing 
as they did the strongest evidence of enterprise, capital, and 
liberal treatment, and having earned, as we were informed, no 
small local reputation, had not been included in the entry-list. 
Had we been permitted to view a larger number of first-class 
farms, and, therefore, we may suppose, had seen a greater 
variety of farming, more information would have been gained, 
and fresh facts would have been brought out, thereby rendering 
this report more acceptable to the reader. 
The inspection of the competing farms has in former years been 
confined to the months of ^lay and July, but, as the sufficiency 
of this plan had been questioned, and certain discussions on the 
subject had taken place in the Council, Mr. Jenkins, Secretary 
of the Society, desired my colleagues (Mr. Thomas Jenkins, of 
Plas-y-ward, near Ruthin, and Mr. Finlay Dun, of Weston 
Park, near Shipston-on-Stour) and myself to meet him, early 
in the month of January, and confer as to the best seasons in 
which to visit the several holdings. At liberty to make as 
many surveys of the farms as we might deem necessary, and 
the choice of time being also left with us, we agreed that a 
winter inspection was not only desirable but of the utmost 
importance. Besides the field operations which, in a favourable 
season and in moderately dry situations, mav be looked for in 
January and February, an inspection at this season enabled the 
Judges to see something of the house-feeding of the cattle and 
the winter management of the sheep-stock. Moreover, the in- 
structions placed in our hands would seem to require that if the 
farms were at all worthy of a minute inspection, they should be 
examined at two or more seasons of the year, as diverse as 
