296 Report on the Farin-Pi ize Competition of 1872. 
portion of the crop left on the swede-land is, for convenience in 
penning the sheep, thrown into heaps of about two cart-loads 
each, and protected from frosts by a covering of soil. Twenty- 
five to twenty-eight tons of swedes per acre is considered a good 
crop, thirty tons being sometimes produced. 
Common turnips, to the extent of ten or twelve acres, are grown 
for the maintenance of the lambs from about September 20th 
until the beginning of December, a few being, if possible, spared 
for the ewes. They are always eaten where they grow, and are^ 
therefore, raised solely from artificial manures — such as dissolved 
bones (5 or 6 cwts.), nitrate of soda (1 to cwt.), and other 
portable fertilizers. White turnips, when late planted, are often 
sown on the flat ; in fact, wherever swedes or common turnips 
are grown on thin, poor soil, Mr. Parsons prefers to plant on the 
flat, the ridge being always adopted on the deeper soils, and 
where there is less cause to fear the effects of a dry season. 
Barley. — This cereal, to the almost total exclusion of the others, 
is planted after roots. Seeding begins early in March, as much of 
the land as can be got ready being sown by the end of the month. 
Three bushels per acre, vitrioled as wheat, and, when dry, mixed 
with about 4 lbs, of Italian rye-grass, is drilled 6^ to 7 inches 
between the rows, Mr, Parsons has tried, and with good results, 
the plan of drilling barley twice over on the same land, length- 
wise and then across, but without materially increasing the 
quantity of seed. By thus spreading the barley closely over 
the entire surface of the ground, a heavier and more unilbrm 
crop is thought to be secured. The kind of barley in most 
favour is Hallett's pedigree, and, in a tolerable season, the yield 
per acre is 45 to 50 bushels. 
Seeds. — Italian rye-grass, we have already said, is drilled 
along with the barley, Pacey's, or other English varieties, being 
seldom grown. The clover mixture, say 8 lbs. of red, 4 of white, 
4 of trefoil, and 2 of alsike, is sown, by broadcast-machine, har- 
rowed and rolled. Portions of the farm having become clover- 
sick, Mr. Parsons is this year trying the effects of giant sainfoin, 
3 bushels to an acre, in place of the red and white cU)vers. Of the 
seed-shift two-thirds are commonly mown, with Wood's machine, 
and made into hay, stacked, and given mainly to the horses and 
sheep in winter and spring. Odd as it may appear, the wheat- 
crop is always stronger and better where the seeds are mown than 
where depastured, and more especially so if the clover be luxuri- 
ant.* This corroborates our own notions on the subject, namely, 
that no kind of plant-food is so beneficial to the wheat-crop as 
* See Dr. Voelcker's paper on this subject, 'Journal of the Eoyal Agricultural 
Society,' 2nd series, vol. iv. No. 8, p. 397. — Edit. 
